


Sifting Through The Ashes

by Ryxl



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Violence, Jack gets beaten up but he heals, Mild Sexual Content, Moira is alive but offscreen, Multi, Other characters in later chapters, Reaper is made of ash and hate, Reconciliation, Tags Contain Spoilers, Talon gets splatted, Talon!Jesse, everything’s fixed by the end, flashback to suicide aftermath, flashback to suicide prep, happy ending i swear, he’s only mostly dead, love doesn’t fix everything but it’s a start, omnic!Sombra, other people get shot, people get eaten by a nanite swarm, prepare to go on a feels trip, that includes Akande, very bad life choice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 00:04:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 50,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15569301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryxl/pseuds/Ryxl
Summary: When Gabriel Reyes joined Talon in the aftermath of the Zurich attack, Jesse McCree followed to keep him from self-destructing. Then Talon captured Soldier 76, and now all the old wounds have been ripped open. In order to sort out the flaming wreckage of their past, Jack’s going to have to deal with the consequences of his actions and Gabriel’s going to have to learn to live again – literally. Jesse, meanwhile, finds an ally – and more – in Sombra, and they’re going to do everything they can to help these two old men get back together. Buckle up, dear reader, because we’re going on a feels trip and we’re not gonna stop until everyone’s happy.I was lucky enough to be partnered with the fantasticTsu★Starfor theReaper76 Big Bang!





	1. Things best left unremembered

**Author's Note:**

> Sifting through the ashes with unsteady hands, searching for the remnants of a broken man. A history of hollow lives and low ideals, a backlog of wrongdoing we can never conceal. I stand up and walk away from the dross, towards the doorway of our mutual and harrowing loss. The only way I know to shake myself of this curse is to throw myself to something that is measurably worse.
> 
> Emerging from the wreckage of a life that once was, confounded by the damage my own psyche does, I bear the scars of an insufferable will and the tyrannical reign it threatens to instill. Some seek control by grabbing hold of their lives in a futile attempt to help themselves survive; I dig myself into a much deeper hole, running from a fate that I can never control.
> 
> I woke up in a column of ash while the world came down in a horrible crash. I was naïve for ever wanting this much, using self-deception as my only crutch. Footsteps diverge from the path they once walked; words are eclipsed by the language they talked. Actions betrayed by promises broken, flames consume intentions best left unspoken.
> 
> I sought refuge in a house on fire. I took shelter in a wall of flame. I built a prison in my own subconscious. There’s nothing else left, nothing else left to blame. Nothing else left…
> 
> \- Assemblage 23, “House On Fire”

“Boss, you better come take a look at this.”

The voice in Reaper’s ear was somber and slightly worried, and that killed any impulse he might have had to give his agent a hard time.

Jesse McCree didn’t spook easily.

A quick check showed that he was in the detention block, just outside cell G, where Soldier 76 was awaiting… _processing_. Sullivan’s squad had gotten lucky on their last mission; they’d gotten the drop on Soldier 76 and knocked him out. Reaper _had_ planned to give the vigilante a few days of isolation to soften him up before he went to have a little _chat_ with him, but now – what was it that he needed to take a look at so urgently?

Irritated but not angry, he released cohesion of his form and slipped into the air vents. He’d mapped the currents long ago, and actually enjoyed traveling through the building this way. It reminded him of the time he’d gone white-water rafting with-

The thought cut out with a mental growl. That life was over and _done_ with. Now irritated _and_ angry, Reaper navigated the twists and turns and emerged less than two minutes later to solidify by McCree.

“What, exactly, am I looking at?”

The cowboy didn’t even flinch. He was used to the strained growl of Reaper’s voice and the way he seemingly appeared out of thin air. “Your guest,” he answered, gesturing to the observation window.

Reaper stepped up and peered through the mirrored glass to see that the vigilante – still armored, although his weapons and equipment had been removed – was doing push-ups. He’d stripped off the leather jacket and gloves and effortlessly pumped out a dozen before switching to his right arm for a set, then his left, then repeating the pattern. The visor that protected his identity was still in place, but Reaper didn’t need to see his face to know who he was. He knew every curve of that torso, every imperfection and scar – but no, there were plenty of new ones, and it made his heart lurch. The eyes he didn’t quite have focused on the vigilante’s hands, and sure enough, the left ring finger bore a pale band where the skin had been protected for many years by a ring.

Jack Morrison.

 _Fuck_.

* * *

_“Vegas, babe? Really?”_

_Although he sounded skeptical, he was smiling like the goddamn sun and Gabriel Reyes couldn’t help but smile back. “Come on, Sunshine. Don’t you trust me?”_

_Jack Morrison rolled his eyes as the other man leaned into kiss his neck. “I trust you, but I also **know** you. Granted, we only have a few days to sneak this in before our new positions take effect, but I don’t want to get married in the Elvis chapel or something similarly tacky.”_

_“Jack, I’m wounded!” The sparkle in Gabriel’s eyes and the way his lips twitched declared that he was not, in fact, wounded. “You think I would cheapen our lifelong vows by making this a theme wedding-”_

_“Maybe,” interrupted Jack dryly, arms crossed over his chest._

_“-that we didn’t **both** agree on?”_

_Both hands now covering his face, Jack groaned. “I’m going to regret this, I just know it.” He let his hands fall. “What did you find, babe?”_

_Gabriel’s broad smile wasn’t reassuring. The pad he handed over already had the chapel’s picture gallery pulled up._

_It was an Overwatch Strike Force themed chapel, with an impressively accurate impersonator of Reinhardt gesturing in front of an altar that was doing an excellent impression of a bastion unit that had come out second best against the Crusader’s hammer._

_Jack sighed, trying and failing to hide his smile. “Okay, babe. You win. Let’s go to Vegas.”_

_Gabriel’s surprised and delighted smile fairly lit up the room._

* * *

 “What’s the play, Boss?” McCree asked quietly.

Reaper groaned. Both hands went to his mask, clawtips dragging down the bone-white surface in a gesture of exasperation for the maelstrom of conflicting emotions seeing Jack was causing. Part of him wanted to rip the door down, tear the visor from the man’s face, and kiss him…with the lips he didn’t have. The rest of him wanted to beat Jack to within an inch of his life for having left him to become… _this._ “That depends on how comfortable you are with showing that ugly mug of yours,” he growled.

“You want me to bust him out.”

“I want to work him over first. But yes, I want you to bust him out. Tell him whatever you think he’ll believe. I’ll arrange your path and steal you a motorcycle.”

The cowboy gave him a sly glance out of the corner of his eye, lips curling into the slightest smirk. “Still got feelings for the old man?”

“No,” Reaper lied, and dissolved into smoke to ride the air currents back to his office.

* * *

“Reaper,” Soldier 76 snarled from behind his visor. “Should I be honored?”

“If you want.”

Drugs pumped into the man’s cell through the air vents had kept him disoriented enough for two Talon agents to secure him to a very sturdy metal chair, gloves and boots and jacket stripped off and piled to the side.

“I’m surprised you haven’t taken the visor,” Soldier 76 said warily. “You know…unmask the vigilante.”

Reaper snorted. “You assume I _care_.”

That made him lean back into the chair, surprise and alarm playing across the wrinkles of his forehead. “Then…if you don’t _care_ …”

If Talon didn’t care who he was, that suggested very bad things about his continued survival.

The laugh that rolled out from behind the mask was dark and mocking. “Why _should_ I care? You’re not going to be around much longer.”

There it was; he tried to keep his voice hard, with no tremors to betray the fear that clawed at his gut. “So you’re going to interrogate me before you kill me?”

“No.” Reaper cracked his neck and let a grin slip into his voice, knowing the other man would hear it. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m just going to beat you to hell and back.”

“But _why?”_ The question burst out of him before he could stop it because what the _hell?_ That made no sense; what was Talon up to?

Reaper fisted his hands slowly, the gauntlets creaking ominously. “Because I _want_ to.”

* * *

_“Hey, hold up a second.”_

_Hotel key ready to insert into the door of their suite, Gabriel paused. “What is it, Sunshine?”_

_Jack’s cheeks were distinctly pink. “I want to carry you over the threshold.”_

_Gabriel thought about cracking a joke, but in the end he just leaned over to give his new husband a teasingly brief kiss on the lips. “If it means that much to you, okay.”_

_“Really?” Jack looked like a kid on Christmas morning, all surprise and hope and delight._

_“Really.” As Jack lifted him into a bridal carry, he leaned in and whispered, “I know you just want an excuse to get your hands on my ass.”_

_That got Jack laughing so hard that he nearly dropped Gabriel before they got the door open. Pressing his advantage, he carried his husband to the heart-shaped bed and laid him down, covering his face with gentle kisses._

_“Thank you, sweetheart,” he murmured against Gabriel’s skin._

_“I just tied the knot with the second most amazing man in the world,” Gabriel teased, his hands already fumbling at Jack’s pants. “I can put up with a little indignity if it makes you happy.”_

_“It does,” Jack breathed, going in for a longer kiss._

_When the kiss ended, Gabriel looked up at his husband and said softly, “Then it makes me happy, too.”_

__

* * *

“Wow. Dad _really_ worked you over. Nothing that won’t heal, but you’re gonna _hurt_ for a while.”

Something cool and wet on his face, soothing bruised and swollen flesh, cleaning his split lip and the crusted blood around his nostrils, dragged him out of memories that cut like glass. Soldier 76 struggled to put his thoughts into words. That was McCree, which meant the man behind Reaper’s mask was…someone whose name he had done his best to bury along with his own. “Jesse? I thought…” He’d thought the cowboy’s father-figure was dead, but he wasn’t entertaining that thought until he had the luxuries of time and security to wrestle with the emotions it brought, and he _certainly_ wasn’t saying it out loud.

“Thought you lost me in the divorce?” Jesse suggested neutrally. “You know I had to stay with my old man.”

He hissed as the ties keeping him secured to the chair loosened, just enough to allow circulation without letting him fall over. “He’s…not…your…”

“Now, actually, he _is_.” The cowboy’s drawl held more than a hint of warning, anger giving it an edge. “Signed the papers on my twenty-first birthday, and we kept it on the down-low at my request. It never came to your attention because I was a legal adult, but if I were to show my face in public with everything that’s happened, it sure as _hell_ would get dug up and splashed all over the front pages for everyone to see.”

“But you were a victim. You didn’t know…” He trailed off as the cowboy coughed, peeled one eye open to see McCree giving him a look one part defiance and two parts guilt. “You _knew?”_

“You weren’t listening,” Jesse said softly. “He couldn’t confide in you, so he confided in me.”

The former Strike-Commander struggled to shape his face into a scowl. “So it was _your_ fault, too.”

Black-gloved hands went to the cowboy’s hips. “I’m starting to think you don’t _want_ my help getting out of here.”

That made him blink and frown in surprise. “You…”

“Got a fifteen-minute window to get you outside, with your gear and a sack of rations, and load you on a stolen motorcycle before anyone notices you’re gone. Now, you want to dismiss me the way you dismissed Dad, I can just leave you right here and no one will be the wiser. But if you’re willing to choke on your damned pride for _fifteen goddamn minutes_ and entertain the notion that _maybe_ things weren’t as black and white as you want to make them seem, I’ll get your sorry ass out of here and you can live to blame me and Dad another day.”

The moment stretched, Jack wrestling with his outrage before he nodded.

“Whatever else he did, he raised a fine son.” The words were stiff and forced, grating on his ego, but McCree smiled.

“Now, that’s more like it. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

* * *

“He’s gone, Boss,” McCree said softly as he slipped into the darkened suite.

From the shadows, Reaper growled, “Good.”

“Made it look like he used the chair to break himself out. He’s a stubborn old bastard, though, and I don’t doubt he’ll be back.”

Reaper snorted. “You got _that_ right. In the morning, I’ll give orders to incapacitate him and bring him back if he shows his face again. Let him decide his own fate.”

“Fair enough.” Jesse stretched and yawned. “Been a long night. I’m gonna turn in.”

“Hmph. Enjoy it.”

Jesse sauntered towards the angry growl, eyes adjusting to the gloom, and draped one arm around Reaper in a hug. “Night, Dad,” he murmured before continuing past.

He was almost to his room when Reaper growled, “I told you not to call me that,” but there was no edge to the words and Jesse grinned as the door closed behind him, knowing Reaper couldn’t see it.

It was a ritual they’d established from the first night they’d been working for Talon, and the only time Jesse used ‘Dad’ instead of ‘Boss’. That one word was a pointed reminder that despite his body being ash and nanites, he was more than just Reaper. As McCree got undressed, the gold chain around his neck swung free and he wrapped gentle fingers around the two flame-stained titanium rings strung on it. Although the engravings were worn after spending decades on their owners’ fingers, Jesse knew them by heart.

All my love – J. M.

Forever yours – G. R.

* * *

Reaper didn’t sleep.

Not out of guilt or uneasiness about what he’d done, or even by choice; no, he didn’t sleep because that, like nearly everything else he’d once enjoyed, was now denied him. Although the nanite swarm that sustained him sometimes needed a period of powering down for code maintenance, the charred remains of his body required no rest. He’d tried various methods of zoning out or turning his brain off, but none of them were very effective and most of the time, he simply made use of the extra hours to sort through information and plan.

Tonight was not one of those nights. Tonight, he paced the suite’s common room with his thoughts swirling down old, bitter paths they hadn’t followed in years, riled up by the sight of the man he’d once been proud to call his husband.

The ability to sort and plan was one of the things that had elevated him from a simple – although _highly_ effective – mercenary working for Talon to a position of greater trust and responsibility. The same skills for managing troops and equipment, for identifying threats almost before they materialized, that had made Blackwatch so formidable now nipped at the heels of governments all over the world. They’d turned a blind eye to their own greed and corruption, to the damage they were doing both directly and through inaction. They’d slowly starved Overwatch, choked the organization through budget restrictions and red tape, made increasingly-impossible demands while simultaneously denying anything that might actually let Overwatch accomplish those goals.

Blackwatch had been hardest hit, of course. No one wanted to know the dirty details that kept them safe; like scavengers, they were reviled for the unpleasantness of their very necessity. Reaper snarled almost inaudibly, wishing he had a face that could sneer. With how hard he’d had to fight to get any support, in terms of money or equipment or manpower, he’d had to drift to the wrong side of the law more and more, relying on dirtier methods and darker allies. Talon hadn’t been responsible for him learning just how badly the governments of the world were hurting their countries; he’d read those reports every day and had the arguments behind closed doors every night. Talon hadn’t been responsible, but they’d offered support in terms of finances and materials when not even Overwatch would…or _could_.

Absently, Reaper clenched his left hand into a fist. For twenty-five years they’d made it work, Jack standing in the spotlight while his husband worked in the shadows. But as the years passed, the oh-so-noble Strike Commander had slowly refused to hear a negative word about the governments they relied on. “You can’t threaten people into doing the right thing,” he’d argued. “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” He’d eventually closed his ears on the entire subject, refusing to entertain the topic first and then refusing to even stay in the room if his husband was intent on telling him about it anyway. Although they never officially split or slept in separate beds, their schedules slowly diverged until they didn’t have to see each other more than the bare minimum. And then, that final night-

Reaper snarled, feeling his cohesion weaken, his mass starting to drift around him like an aura of doom. _Damn_ Morrison for making him remember this shit! For a single, pulsing moment his rage burned like molten steel, wishing he hadn’t gone so easy on the vigilante, wanting to make him _suffer-_

Abruptly, he left the suite and poured through the air vents until he boiled out into the detention block to stand up out of the shadows and loom over the security guard on duty.

“Soldier Seventy-Six has escaped,” he snarled. “I will issue orders regarding him in the morning. In the meantime, which prisoners are expendable?”

The guard swallowed heavily and scrolled through a pad. “Uh…cell R, sir. Hostage whose ransom was denied.”

“Good…” The word was a low, cruel hiss. “In three hours, you may alert the cleaning crew.”

The guard swallowed again, looking distinctly pale. “Understood, sir.”

He strode down the hall, slow and menacing, letting the echoes of his boots against the floor precede him. Prisoners in other cells, the ones who’d been there long enough to hear stories, shrank back and whimpered. When he paused in front of cell Q, a young girl’s voice cried out and the sound of terrified weeping floated past the metal door. Reaper slid the shutter open and peered through the narrow window.

“You. Girl.”

The weeping paused with a little gasp.

“I’m not here for _you_. Cover your ears.”

The metal shutter slid closed with a scraping clang, and Reaper dissolved into smoke. Slowly, he seeped under the door to cell R where a young man sat huddled on the corner of his cot, knees hugged to his chest. In the dim light, he didn’t see the smoke that billowed up or the man that stepped out of it until suddenly, the bone-white mask appeared to float in the air like a phantom.

One of the peculiarities of his new existence, Reaper had discovered, was that although he didn’t have a flesh-and-blood body, he periodically needed to replenish certain compounds he couldn’t get by just assimilating raw materials or corpses. They had to be ripped out of a still-living body. He couldn’t bring himself to do it in cold blood, or even the heat of a firefight. But when he was angry enough – enraged, _infuriated_ enough to be a danger to his men or, worse, to his cowboy son – well. There were always victims to be found among the prisoners, people who Talon would demand die one way or another, and it pleased the shadowy higher-ups to hold these prisoners until Reaper was ready for them. Sometimes they waited months.

“Your ransom was denied,” Reaper said in a soft, almost pleasant growl. “If you have any prayers you would like to perform, I’ll give you two minutes. And then…” His chuckle filled the cell as the young man quaked. “Then you _die_ , and it will be neither quick nor painless.”

In cell Q, the girl pulled the thin mattress of her cot to the floor and rolled up in it, fingers in her ears.

It didn’t help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amazing art by [Tsu★Star](http://tsu-star.tumblr.com/post/176704722261/heres-my-bit-for-the-reaper76bigbang-story-by) in chapters 1, 4, 9, and 15! Click to see all four.


	2. Bruises, bourbon, and guilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a second run-in with his ex-husband, Jack goes a few rounds with his own guilt and loses.

McCree didn’t look up when the console chimed. It wasn’t his business what Talon wanted until Reaper _said_ it was his business. Things hadn’t exactly been quiet since he’d helped Soldier 76 escape, but the vigilante had kept his head down and hopefully this would be no different. He stayed sprawled on the couch in the suite’s common room, reading his pad like he hadn’t even heard the chime of orders coming in. When Reaper started laughing – a low, evil chuckle – _then_ he looked up.

“Who they wantcha to kill?” he asked casually.

“It doesn’t _have_ to be me,” Reaper countered. The rare playful note in his growl, though, only proved that the cowboy had guessed right. “I could assign this mission to anyone. Even you.”

“But yer not.”

“Nope. This one’s _all mine_. Data retrieval, government facility, casualties optional but preferred.”

Wisps of black smoke trailed down from the back of Reaper’s shoulders, telling McCree exactly how eager the man was to get started on killing people. It was hard to read his mood without a face, but he’d found that reading the wisps was sort of like reading a cat’s body language: good enough to get a sense, even if he didn’t get specifics.

“Have fun,” he said dryly. “When should I expect you back?”

It was a deliberate reminder that he cared, and they both knew it.

“I’ll check in after the mission is complete,” Reaper growled. “With travel, should be about twenty-two-hundred hours your time. Don’t wait up for me to get back.”

Ten at night. McCree nodded. “Alright. Fly safe both ways and g’night in advance, Dad.”

For a moment, Reaper almost looked like he wanted to hug his cowboy son. Then he nodded sharply and wisped out of the suite.

* * *

Flights across the Atlantic weren’t Reaper’s idea of fun. He generally spent the entire time going over reports that were only slightly less boring than doing nothing at all, and this trip was no different. The target facility had a landing pad in a recessed courtyard for the privacy and convenience of it usual visitors, and although the sun had not yet set, they were in no danger of discovery. Privacy for the usual visitors included no windows facing the courtyard.

Reaper flowed out of the ship, solidifying just before he reached the door and then kicking it in for as dramatic an entrance as he could manage. That brought half the population of the office running in to see what was going on, and the gunshots as he took them out elicited screams from deeper inside the complex. Some of the office inhabitants were dumb enough to run towards the commotion, but most of them were smart enough to flee. He chased them all down, painting cubicle walls with blood and brains as he found them. A handful tried to make a break for it, but they weren’t fast enough to outrun shotgun shells or a river of black smoke. The last one died waiting for the elevator, and then he was alone with cooling corpses and unfettered access to their computer systems.

The first thing he did was turn the security cameras off. Then he erased the security logs for the entire day, not just the ones that showed him massacring the office workers. Once he’d covered his tracks, _then_ he started digging for the reason he’d been sent. He found it easily enough, siphoning it out of storage and straight onto the ship’s server and deleting swaths of unrelated data just because it amused him.

While it was transferring, the elevator chimed.

He was waiting when the door opened, and a terrified woman in a pencil skirt shrieked and hit the ‘door close’ button a second before Reaper blew her head off.

The doors closed.

Reaper knew he had until the elevator arrived at its next stop to get out of there, because once the body was discovered the entire place would start swarming. Luckily, the transfer completed a few seconds later, and he put half a dozen shotgun shells into various terminals before flowing back out the way he’d come in. The ship was well out of range by the time the alarms actually sounded and he reported to Talon first, data already transmitting from ship to satellite, but his success was brushed off with new orders.

Soldier 76 was attacking a nearby Talon warehouse.

The ship’s pilot had changed their course before the communication even ended, and instead of opening a line to McCree, Reaper sent him a brief update by text.

_I’m going to turn in, then,_ the cowboy sent back. _Night, Dad._

The reminder that he had once been Gabriel Reyes was _not_ what Reaper needed when he was on his way to confront and possibly kill his ex-husband.

* * *

When the small transport ship touched down in the loading area for the warehouse, Soldier 76 was already inside. Reaper wisped in as a river of smoke, utilizing one of the few perks of his condition to take a spatial reading of the area as he moved through it. The motion of his swarm generated a three-dimensional map as the cloud of his substance spread, and finding his target didn’t take long at all. The man was rifling through a crate he’d pried open, unaware that Reaper had solidified behind him.

For a moment he just stood there behind Soldier 76, one shotgun aimed at the back of his head. A twitch of his finger and the nuisance would be gone out of his life forever. He’d never even know what killed him.

The shotgun cracked against the back of the man’s skull, and he collapsed bonelessly against the crate.

A quick death was too good for him, Reaper told himself as he shouldered the man’s limp body and carried him out of the building. He certainly wasn’t sparing the vigilante’s life out of some atrophied sense of _affection._ That would be pathetic, considering the man had made his opinion of their relationship _quite_ clear. One coil of rope and an all-clear report later, they were alone in the far corner of the property and Reaper was putting the finishing touches on his homemade piñata. He’d tied the man’s hands together behind his back with a short length and tossed the rest over the arm of a lightpole, looping both ends around Soldier 76 just under the armpits and ensuring that the man’s toes just barely scraped the ground before securely tying the knots.

Although the backhand didn’t hurt, it jarred Soldier 76 enough to wake him up.

“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty,” he growled as the man jerked against his bonds.

It didn’t take Soldier 76 long to realize the position he was in. “Awww,” he drawled condescendingly. “You think I’m beautiful?”

The fist that caught him in the solar plexus not only knocked the wind out of him, but set him swinging for a few moments.

“I knew you were a fool,” Reaper growled. “I didn’t know you were a sucker for punishment.”

“I married _you_ , didn’t I?” When Soldier 76 stopped swinging from the second blow, he was laughing. “Sorry, did I hit a nerve? Actually, wait – I’m _not_ sorry.”

“You’ll be sorry when I’m through with you,” Reaper promised. “I didn’t think you’d be so eager for another beating after the one I gave you not so long ago.”

“You used to give me worse poundings than that, remember?” the man taunted. “We’d go at it all night sometimes. What’s the matter, can’t get it up anymore?”

Reaper bristled, hating the reminder that his body was charred beyond all functionality, hating that for the moment, he had no comeback for that accusation past punching. He punched anyway. “You’re not worth it,” he said as Soldier 76 swung from the rope.

The vigilante spat blood off to one side. “Or maybe you’re just too busy choking on Talon’s cock.”

For a minute or two, Reaper worked him like a boxer with a heavy punching bag. The pained breathing Soldier 76 was reduced to as he swung was gratifyingly sweet.

_“That’s_ more like it,” Reaper said smugly. “Any time you want to get the shit beat out of you again, just bother a Talon facility.”

“Good to know,” Soldier 76 wheezed. “Are you done? Because I am.”

“You- _what?”_

With more core strength than he’d thought the man had left, Soldier 76 tucked his knees up under his chin and brought his bound arms around to the front of his body. He reached over his head to grab the rope and then swung his legs back and _up,_ catching the rope with his feet and taking himself out of reach. Upside-down, he inched his way up the rope towards the arm of the lightpole while Reaper watched in bemusement.

“You know I could still shoot you,” he pointed out.

Soldier 76 didn’t so much as flinch. “But you won’t, or you would have done it in the warehouse.”

Reaper waited until the man was almost to the lightpole’s arm. Then he shot the rope and laughed as Soldier 76 flung himself at the pole and clung to it, like a monkey.

“Remember,” he taunted as the man tried to inch his way up the pole. “Any time you want another beating, just bother Talon. But I won’t always be around to put you in your place. Someone may panic and _actually_ shoot you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Soldier 76 growled.

Chuckling, Reaper returned to the ship.

* * *

Soldier 76 peeled his signature jacket off, groaning slightly. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, and Reaper hadn’t pulled any of his punches. Combine that with being pistol-whipped and the stunt he’d pulled climbing the lightpole, and he was going to need something more than a hot bath to ease the aches – not just the ones in his muscles, but the way it had _hurt_ to banter like that.

He shrugged into a nondescript brown coat, tugged a knitted cap down over his hair, and stuffed a handful of crumpled bills into one pocket before heading out into the night.

At the time, it had felt _great_ , getting those verbal kicks in. Refusing to be cowed by the man who’d turned his back on them and joined the Dark Side. Fighting back the only way he could. But now, without the adrenaline, he felt…empty.

Reaper hadn’t killed him. This was twice now, and a pathetic corner of his heart – the place where he’d stuffed _Jack_ and _Gabe_ and _Ana_ and the rest of their friends – hoped it was because he still _cared_. He’d promised, right? They both had. _Until death do us part._

The bell on the door to the liquor store jingled as he pushed it open. He selected his bottle, presented falsified ID that the jaded clerk barely glanced at, and handed over the crumpled bills with a minimum of chatter. Then it was back into the night, bottle in its paper bag clutched in one hand.

They’d promised, but the memory of working the ring off his finger, flinging it at his shocked husband, hearing the _ting_ as it fell to the floor…

He twisted the cap off his bottle and swigged golden liquid that burned but didn’t burn away the guilt that crept up his throat like bile.

* * *

Between the bourbon and the bath, he was feeling pleasantly numb as he bundled himself into briefs and blankets. At least, he felt good _physically_. As soon as his body stopped moving, his brain lurched into a higher gear and gnawed on the issue of Reaper. Twice now, he’d escaped with nothing worse than heavy bruising and maybe some fractured bones. Things he could easily heal from. And McCree…

McCree was loyal, but he had also been the first to call Gabriel on his words or actions if he went too far on anything. Would he have helped a prisoner escape in defiance of Reaper’s orders?

Would Reaper have given the order to help a prisoner escape?

Did Reaper _want_ him alive? _Did_ he care? The beatings…

…were no more than he deserved, he sighed to himself.

_Maybe things weren’t as black and white as you want to make them seem,_ McCree had said. The cowboy hadn’t sided with either one of them on the Shimada incident, but he _had_ befriended Genji and given him something to think about that wasn’t the ruin his life _and_ his body had become. A good kid, Gabe called him. Less concerned with the rules and consequences of the bigger picture than the simple fact that someone was hurting. And the uprising in London, the Null Sector incident…

The man who had once been Jack Morrison slipped into fitful slumber haunted by the ghosts of the past.

* * *

_“You’re suspending me?”_

_“I’m suspending **Blackwatch**.”_

_Gabriel’s face darkened. “This is a mistake.”_

_“No,” Jack snapped, rounding on him. “Vienna was a mistake. What happened in Japan was a mistake. **This** is me cleaning up **your** mess.”_

_“By bowing to the UN? Caving to political pressure?”_

_“The UN is why we exist!” Jack shouted. “Overwatch exists at the sufferance of the world! It’s not our place to question that!”_

_Scowling, Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, it **is** , and this is a **mistake**.”_

_“I’m not arguing this with you, Gabriel.” Jack sighed and massaged his temples. “Blackwatch is suspended until I can get the furor to quiet down. Send your agents on a vacation. **End of discussion.”**_

_“Fine,” Gabriel snapped. “But this isn’t over.”_

* * *

_Gabriel sauntered into Jack’s office, smug dripping from every line in his body. “Decided the Brits **didn’t** have it all under control after all, Jack?”_

_He didn’t return the other man’s smile. “You used my words against me. I told you to give your agents a vacation, and you sent McCree into a **war zone** to assess a situation we were **explicitly** told to keep our noses out of.” _

_The cold, angry tone made Gabriel frown. “I asked where he wanted to go. He said London.”_

_“Without prompting?”_

_The frown escalated to a scowl. “Yes! Believe it or not, Jesse **cares** about little things like **world peace** and **hostages**. And apparently you agree, because **you** authorized that mission!” _

_Jack surged to his feet and roared, “You twisted my arm!”_

_“So well that you argued Ana down?”_

_The Strike-Commander looked away. “She agreed with you.”_

_“And Angela? Torbjörn? Reinhardt?” Gabriel pressed. “Did you have to **order** them to go?”_

_“No,” Jack said quietly._

_“So I was right. **We** were right. It was the right thing to do.”_

_Jack turned to glare at his husband. “It was the right thing to do,” he ground out, “but we were **explicitly** told **not to do it,** and now there’s even **more** resistance to Overwatch than there was before! We **can’t** operate like this, Gabriel!”_

_“When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and-”_

_“Stop. Don’t fucking **no, you move** at me.” Jack sat back down, massaging his temples with both hands while Gabriel hovered awkwardly. “Politics doesn’t work like that, Gabe. I can’t just **strong-arm** governments into doing the right thing.”_

_Quietly, Gabriel said, “You shouldn’t have to.”_

_“No, I shouldn’t. But that’s the way the world works. All I can do is play by the rules and try not to get kicked out of the game.”_

_Gabriel took a handful of steps closer and laid one hand on his husband’s shoulder, squeezing gently in silent reassurance before leaving quietly._

* * *

Sunlight poked sharp fingers through the blinds, prodding him awake. His mouth tasted like something had died in it, his head was pounding, and he wasn’t sure if it was the hangover making his stomach churn…or guilt from the realization that he’d been lashing out at his husband for the crime of refusing to play a rigged game, and now here he was doing the exact same thing.

Groaning, he struggled out of bed and staggered into the bathroom. Shower, breakfast, and then he’d have to see if he could figure out some way to cross Reaper’s path. Maybe think of something he could say to determine if there was anything left of the bridge that had burned between them.


	3. Possible threat, potential ally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hacker-shaped monkey wrench gets thrown into Reaper’s – and McCree’s – life. Whether she’s going to be helpful or trustworthy is up for debate.

The noise Reaper made was a deep, tearing sound of disgust.

Jesse looked up from spreading jam on his buttered toast. “What’s wrong, Dad?”

It was a sign of how deeply aggravated Reaper was that he didn’t protest the use of the word. “Talon brass is sending us a new recruit. Not the facility,” he clarified as the cowboy opened his mouth to protest. “Us, specifically. You and me. To live in our suite and, quote, _assist me_.”

Irritated wisps drifted away from Reaper’s shoulders and back, and Jesse chewed his toast thoughtfully for a minute.

“So…they give you any more information on the recruit?”

The wisps intensified. “No. Just that Auborn will be arriving within the next two hours to make the introductions.”

Jesse frowned. “Auborn?”

“The one that looks like a young General Tarkin.”

“Right, right.” He took another bite of toast. “Guess I should freshen up before they arrive.”

Reaper made a small, amused sound. “Might be an idea.”

Two hours later, McCree was clean and dressed and sitting in an easy chair with his pad. Reaper was at his desk, sifting through intelligence reports – or at least, pretending that’s what he was doing – when the door to their four-person suite slid open without so much as a courtesy knock. The thin, disapproving face of Tarkin-Auborn regarded them with barely-concealed disdain, hands clasped behind his back.

“This is Sombra,” he announced as a female shape peered out from behind him. “She now answers to you, Reaper. Use her well.”

A sudden shove to the small of the back propelled her into the room with a startled yelp, and the door slid shut. Sombra immediately whirled to shake her fist at it, calling Auborn an impressive number of vile things in Spanish. After one final annoyed huff, she turned back around to smile with forced cheer at McCree.

“Well, _howdy there,_ lil’ lady,” he said, sitting up straight. “What heaven did _you_ fall from?”

The smile transformed into a scowl. “Reaper?”

“No,” Reaper growled dryly. “That’s Agent McCree. _I’m_ Reaper. Smack him if he misbehaves.”

“Hey!”

“That was one of the oldest pick-up lines in the book, and you fucked it up.” Reaper stood, arms crossed. “It goes, _did it hurt when you fell from heaven?”_

Sombra giggled.

“Now. Tell me about yourself,” Reaper demanded.

“Talon caught me hacking them,” Sombra answered promptly. “Said it was work for them or die, and I got things to do, so…”

“A hacker.” Someone who could potentially sabotage the swarm keeping him alive. Despite the alarmed wisps boiling off of him, Reaper’s voice was calm. “Fine. You can choose one of those two rooms-” one taloned gauntlet pointed at the two doors on the side of the suite opposite the two he and McCree were using “-and unless I have a mission for you, I expect you to occupy yourself _quietly_. If you have questions, ask McCree. And kick him if he starts humping your leg.”

“I got more dignity than that,” Jesse protested, standing up to bow to the newcomer. “It ain’t my fault you’re the kinda woman that makes men like me sit up and beg.”

Sombra reached out and flicked his ear, making him yelp. “Sit. Stay. Play dead.”

Reaper chuckled.

“Is this a Hispanic thing?” Jesse asked him sourly. “If I’m gonna get it from both sides, I’d like to at least be prepared.”

“Both sides?” Sombra peered intently at the wisping figure.

Reaper crossed his arms again in a gesture McCree recognized as trying to hide how pleased he was. “Si. Now, enough small talk. I have _work_ to do.”

He sat and pretended to work again while listening to see what the other two would do, but Sombra excused herself to pick a room and Jesse went back to reading.

The rest of the day passed quietly; no new missions meant McCree went down to the practice range and then the gym while Sombra emerged from her room and, apparently, alternated between poking at a spare pad she’d found somewhere and just _staring_ at Reaper.

He pretended to not notice.

McCree came back eventually with a bag of tacos and a take-out cup of soda. He left five tacos on a corner of Reaper’s desk and sat at the table in the kitchen area with the rest.

“Brought you some,” he called to Sombra.

“Not hungry,” she called back.

“That’s fine. Leaving ‘em on the counter for you.”

For several minutes, the only sounds were the crunch and rustle of McCree eating dinner. Reaper extended one hand and let it turn to smoke over his tacos, the swarm devouring them paper and all. Sombra seemed _particularly_ intent when he did that, but she said nothing and went back to whatever she was doing on her pad.

When Jesse announced he was going to bed, he left off the ritual _Dad_. That bothered Reaper more than he’d thought it would. Sombra stayed up for another hour or so before announcing that she was going to bed as well. It was two hours later before Reaper realized she’d never eaten her tacos; they were still sitting on the counter.

In a fit of jealousy that she’d let them go to waste, he let one hand go to smoke and devoured them all.

* * *

Sombra was the last one out of her room the next morning, and Reaper waited for her to accuse McCree of eating her tacos, but she didn’t mention them. The cowboy was making pancakes and bacon that Reaper wished he could at least _smell,_ even if he couldn’t taste anything, but she ignored the scents and declined the cowboy’s offer to make her some. She did help herself to a mug of hot coffee before going back to her ‘poke the pad and stare’ routine, and Reaper dismissed her.

He and Jesse sat at the table, going over intelligence reports and strategy while the cowboy ate. It was a routine stretching back to Jesse’s first days at Blackwatch, a period of quiet and bonding, and something he sorely missed whenever he or his cowboy were off on a mission. Reaper had a stack of pancakes and bacon of his own, because he _did_ need to regularly assimilate material so his swarm could maintain his body, but he ignored it until Jesse was done eating and then absorbed it through one smoky hand. He couldn’t taste it, and he didn’t _need_ to eat actual food, but this was a battle he’d lost to McCree years ago. He finalized plans while Jesse did the dishes, going back to his desk to write his reports for the higher-ups when the cowboy excused himself to shower and dress.

Sombra was still watching him.

She got up once McCree came back out retreating into her room to shower and possibly realizing from the cowboy’s scowl that she was sitting in his favorite seat. He didn’t say anything as he reclaimed it, but after a few minutes of reading on his pad, he absently lifted her coffee mug to his lips and almost immediately spat the liquid back out.

“Cold,” he complained. Then he froze. Giving the mug a confused look, he set it on the coffee table and went back to his pad. Although he didn’t make the comment out loud, it hung unsaid in the air between them.

She hadn’t drunk the coffee.

McCree was familiar enough with the way Reaper thought that sometimes, they didn’t need to discuss a subject to be on the same page. A simple ‘hold the fort’ as Reaper headed out to his weekly meeting was enough to convey that he didn’t trust the hacker to be unsupervised yet; Jesse’s drawled ‘yessir’ was his agreement and a promise that he wouldn’t leave until his boss came back.

* * *

The meeting was every bit as boring as it usually was. Every week, Reaper explained his analysis of various situations and suggested courses of action to one or two figures present only through viewscreens, ensconced in tall-backed chairs and shrouded in shadows. They rarely spoke, asking a question here or there but otherwise letting him talk. A waste of time, he thought, but proof that they valued his input because these were the heads of Talon. One of them – Vialli – was always present. The other, if there was a second, changed week by week. No doubt they thought they were keeping him in the dark (so to speak) with their little charade, but he’d pieced together more about their identities and the workings of Talon than they likely suspected.

That there were different factions within the organization was a given. That he (and by extension, McCree) ‘belonged’ to Vialli was equally obvious. But who the other players were, their goals and ambitions – figuring _that_ out from scraps and side comments was the only aspect of these meetings that made them worth his while.

There were questions about Soldier 76, of course. How he’d escaped, why Reaper hadn’t killed him, and what he was going to do about the vigilante in the future.

“He’s _mine,”_ Reaper growled emphatically. “I want him incapacitated and brought in, but not harmed and _absolutely_ not killed. I want to _break_ him. I’m going to make him regret every decision he’s ever made before I’m through with him.”

Surprisingly, this went over well. It made him wonder what sort of terms the previous Reaper had negotiated with Talon in the past.

He mentioned Sombra, towards the end. That he had yet to test her abilities but would do so immediately after the meeting; speculation on how she could be put to good use depending on his assessment of her skill. Maximilien was the second bigwig present, the occasional misplaced gleam marking him as an omnic, and he seemed too…uninterested…in Sombra. Something to examine more closely, Reaper thought as the meeting concluded. Maximilien’s screen winked out, Vialli thanked Reaper, and then his screen went dark as well.

* * *

Sombra was, to all appearances, engrossed in her pad when Reaper returned to the suite. McCree drawled out ‘all clear, Boss’ but did not look up from his own pad, even when Reaper came to a stop before Sombra’s chair and waited, looming, for her to look up.

“Investigate Volskaya,” he growled. “Not the company. The _woman_. Finances. Allies. Weak points. Anything we can leverage. I want it by tomorrow.”

It was a test, of course. They’d already investigated Katya Volskaya and had what he thought was a pretty thorough dossier. It would be interesting to see what Sombra’s report contained.

The hacker sat up straight, purple eyes alight with anticipation and possibly a hint of admiration. “You got it,” she promised.

As he returned to his desk, Sombra manifested a handful of hard-light screens and seemed to be hard at work on all of them, judging from the information that flashed by. But she’d manifested them with nothing but her own hands.

Suddenly, Maximilien’s disinterest looked a lot more interesting.

* * *

Sombra worked through lunch, worked through McCree leaving and coming back with subs and chips and soda for dinner. As Reaper assimilated his meatball sub, she closed her screens and sat up with the air of a teacher’s pet about to give a book report.

“I have completed my investigation,” she announced in a tone just shy of bragging.

Reaper leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “Good. Let’s hear it.”

Her presentation was just as thorough as the existing file on Volskaya, but the way she presented the information suggested strongly that she had experience with blackmail. Vialli’s focus had been on political and financial leverage, but Sombra zeroed in on Volskaya’s young daughter and their warm relationship. A mother who loved her child, Sombra insisted, would do anything to protect that child. Especially if the mother was a strong public figure. Katya was under universal pressure to do more than just keep producing the same mechs; she had to _innovate,_ to find a way to improve perfection. Not just for the future of Russia, but to keep her position of power and make it unassailable. To convince any enemies that attempting to get to her through her daughter was futile.

“You’re suggesting coercion rather than usurpation,” Reaper said when she finished, the first words he’d spoken during the entire presentation.

Sombra spread her hands and grinned. “Why kill the goose with the golden eggs? No need to spend all that time and effort to get your own person into her position if you can just…control the woman _already_ in her position, right?”

“By threatenin’ her kid?” McCree asked sharply. “That’s cold.”

Sombra rounded on him. “And what do you think would happen to the child if a sniper took out her mom, hmm? I’m not suggesting we _actually_ hurt the girl! Sheesh, you never blackmailed someone before? The point is to make your target think about what you _could_ do – _if_ you were unhappy enough with them. If you find the right weak spot and you’ve got a credible threat, your target will bend over backwards for you without you having to actually do anything.”

“Sombra has a point,” Reaper growled, making McCree subside without voicing his rebuttal. “If it ever becomes necessary to move against Katya Volskaya, I’ll keep that suggestion in mind.”

McCree nodded, clearly unhappy, and excused himself to the practice range. Reaper turned his attention back to the hacker.

“In the meantime…until Talon has a mission for you, I want you to track the movements of Soldier Seventy-Six to the best of your knowledge and have his current known or suspected whereabouts for me whenever I ask for them.”

“That’s it?” Sombra asked, eyebrows arching. “Just _watch_ him?”

Reaper’s voice was low and menacing. “Is that a problem?”

The moment stretched, and then Sombra lowered her eyes. “No.”

“Good.”

He looked down and pretended to become engrossed in his work, and Sombra…went back to doing the staring thing.

If he’d still had skin, that would have made it crawl.


	4. Ashes, ashes…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reaper’s had just about enough of Sombra’s deceptions and demands answers, but winds up getting more than he’d bargained for. (Flashback to suicide prep, but – obviously – he survives.)

The next few days followed the same pattern, with Sombra staring at him when she had nothing else to do – and accomplishing the busywork he set her with alarming swiftness. She never ate the food Jesse left her, never drank the coffee she poured herself. Reaper assimilated the food after she’d gone to bed to keep the cowboy from getting more suspicious, and McCree confirmed that she hadn’t left the suite since her arrival. Between her apparent starvation diet and the way she interacted with those screens she projected, Reaper was coming to an uncomfortably inescapable conclusion that raised more questions than it answered.

After McCree had gone to bed – _with_ the usual ‘good night, Dad’ for a welcome change, something that had Sombra looking up in surprise – Reaper decided it was time he and the hacker had a little _chat_.

“Aren’t you going to eat your burrito?” he asked casually, the first words of small talk he’d uttered towards her since her arrival.

She looked up at him, startled, and licked her lips. “I’m not hungry.”

It was the same excuse she used every time Jesse offered her food, but this time, there was a note of fear under her tone of brassy defiance. Reaper abused the quantum entanglement of his swarm to translocate across the room and manifest in front of her, arms crossed.

“I’m sure,” he growled. “The question is… _why_ aren’t you hungry?”

Purple eyes widened slightly in alarm. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lie. She was _lying_ to him, something that made his temper flare. “Don’t give me that. _You don’t eat_. Do you think I haven’t noticed?”

“No, I-” Her protest cut off as one clawed gauntlet closed around her throat.

“Who sent you?” he demanded in a low snarl, lifting her half out of her chair. “Who _made_ you?”

“No one sent me! Tehuacán made my body, but-”

“So Tehuacán sent you?”

Both of her hands clung to his wrist as she dangled in his grip. “No! No one sent me!”

_“Then why are you here?”_

Reaper had just registered Jesse’s door opening when his entire body suddenly _trembled,_ like when he’d pushed his muscles too hard back when he still had them, only in every inch of his form. Sombra dropped from his unresponsive hand and he stumbled back two steps before the backs of his legs hit the coffee table. A pair of strong arms caught him as he toppled over.

“What did you do to my dad?” McCree demanded, furious and remarkably intimidating for a man wearing a pair of cactus-print boxers and nothing else.

“It’s not gonna hurt him-”

 _“That’s not what I asked!”_ he roared. “What the _fuck_ did you do to _my dad?”_

His ash-and-nanite body was…buzzing. It felt less like there were ants crawling all over him and more like his body was _made_ of ants. Weakly, he fought free of McCree’s arms to curl into a ball on the coffee table as if he could hold himself together that way. His sight deteriorated into the spatial awareness of the swarm, and even that went patchy as his hearing drifted in and out of static.

“…won’t hurt him…upgrade…swarm…”

Sombra sounded like she was trying to talk her way out of McCree’s metal fist, Reaper thought in distant satisfaction.

“…let some snotty little chica…swarm without…”

“…should have…”

“…STRAIGHT YOU SHOULD HAVE!”

“…HELP HIM, IDIOT!”

“WITHOUT ASKING?”

The buzzing was fading. His spatial awareness sharpened, then snapped into sight and his body felt…good. Effortless.

“…NEVER WOULD HAVE LET ME IF I HADN’T-”

“Enough,” Reaper growled. “McCree, put her down. Sombra, _shut up.”_

The sudden, sullen silence was a relief. Reaper sat up, climbed to his feet, and stretched. “That’s _better,”_ he announced. “Now. Sombra. _What did you do to me?”_

The hacker looked nervous. Good.

“I’ve been studying your swarm,” she said, not nearly as composed as she was trying to sound. “Its programming is a mess. I’m surprised it even held you together. So I cleaned up the code a little and set your current shape as the default, told it to hold the default unless you tell it to do something else.”

So _that’s_ why his body felt so effortless. He’d been holding himself together for so long that he’d forgotten what it was like to _not_ have to concentrate on doing that. Cautiously, he told one hand to dissolve and then pulled it back together. There was almost no resistance, the nanites obeying instantly.

“You _still_ should have asked his permission first,” McCree growled.

Reaper snorted. “She’s right. I never would have let her.”

“I can do more,” she said quietly. “If you let me.”

“I’m sure you can.” Reaper flexed his hand. “The question is: why would you? What do you get out of this?”

“Assurance that you won’t want to kill me if Talon thinks I’m a threat?” she asked, her voice back to brassy defiance.

“Try again.”

Her eyes flicked to McCree, standing with his arms crossed, scowling. “You called him your dad,” she said. He nodded. “You’re Jesse McCree, orphaned, former member of the Deadlock Gang before it was raided. Joined Blackwatch at seventeen.”

“Tell me somethin’ every two-bit hooker this side of the Rio Grande _doesn’t_ know,” he said evenly.

Her voice, her eyes, were just as even. “On your twenty-first birthday, you were officially adopted by Gabriel Reyes, the hero of the Omnic Crisis.” Those purple eyes fixed unflinchingly onto Reaper’s mask. “I’ve looked up to you since I was a child. Nothing that happened shook my faith in you. I know how corrupt the governments are, how they strangled Overwatch. I _didn’t_ know you survived. Not until I came here. You saved the world and got stabbed in the back for it; the _least_ I can do in return is use my skills to help you.”

Jesse’s hostility drained out of him; Reaper didn’t relax. “You started studying my swarm before you knew that,” he growled.

“I did.” Sombra didn’t even blink. “At first, I just wanted to see what made you tick in case I needed an ace up my sleeve. But I suspected you were ex-Overwatch because McCree was too relaxed around you, and then he called you _Dad_. I figured even if I was wrong and you _weren’t_ Gabriel Reyes, a little insurance never hurt.”

“Smart girl. Just one thing.”

Sombra stiffened.

“The only ones at Talon who know that are in this room. Did you check for surveillance devices?” Not that there were any, of course. He just wanted to know if she’d known that.

She shot him a dirty look. “Of _course.”_

“Good. Don’t say my name out loud again. And _discuss_ any changes you want to make to my swarm with me _before_ you make them. Got it?”

“Got it. Question?”

Reaper sighed. “What is it?”

The look she gave him was like a child seeing Santa in the mall for the first time, a miracle made flesh converting the skeptic into a believer. “Can I call you Papi?”

McCree sniggered.

Briefly, Reaper wished he had lips to smirk with. “Fine. Now go to bed, both of you. It’s late.”

“Night again, Dad,” Jesse said, giving him his usual one-armed hug.

The instant he let go, Sombra was there with her arms wrapped around Reaper’s waist. “Buenas noches, Papi,” she said softly. Then she scurried off to her room, leaving the other two to watch her go.

“You really okay?” Jesse asked softly.

He _hmphed_. “Best I’ve been since everything went to hell. Go sleep, Jesse.”

The cowboy hugged him again. “Alright. See you in the morning.”

Reaper watched as Jesse strolled back to his room, then retreated into his own room and turned off the lights. Without the need to maintain his own form, the meditation exercises that usually failed to do anything for him actually quieted his mind and for the first time in months, possibly over a year, Reaper slept.

* * *

_“Jesus **Christ** , Jack!”_

_Gabriel rolled to the side, feeling a sting in his right arm that told him he hadn’t moved fast enough to avoid being shot. He gripped the wound with the other hand, putting pressure on it while cautiously peering around the door into the Strike-Commander’s office. The dead woman on the floor had a nametag reading **Sotomayor** on her Blackwatch uniform, but her face was one he’d never seen. There was a knife in her hand and a good amount of blood splashed around, but it looked like Jack had killed her with his sidearm. The same one he’d just shot Gabriel with._

_“What happened?” he asked, concern for his husband choking him. It was hard to tell how much of the blood on Jack’s face was his._

_“Why don’t you tell me?” Jack snarled, expression hard. The pistol in his hand didn’t waver. “This was one of **your** agents, Gabriel.”_

_“No. She’s wearing a Blackwatch uniform, but I’ve never seen her.”_

_“Just like you **never sent those orders**?” _

_Gabriel felt his temper surge but pushed it back down. “Jack, **listen** to me! I didn’t authorize those missions. I didn’t send those orders. And this woman? This is **proof** that **someone** has been sticking their fingers in our business! If you would just **let** me dig into-”_

_“You mean violate UN regulations on private data and unauthorized background checks?” Jack demanded coldly. “That would make us just as bad as the shitty government we grew up with. **For the last time, no**.”_

_“Jack…”_

_“She tried to **kill** me, Gabriel.” _

_Each word was hard and sharp, and Gabriel wasn’t sure if what he was feeling was shock from the wound in his arm, or from the way his husband was looking at him._

_“One of **your agents** -” _

_“She’s not one of my agents! Jack, **listen** to me. Please. I know things have been strained between us and I’ve used some pretty unorthodox methods, but you can’t honestly believe that I would ever want you dead! For better or for worse, remember?”_

_“I remember,” Jack said, his voice low and ominous. “Until death do us part.”_

_He put the pistol on his desk and Gabriel watched, frozen in place, as he worked the titanium wedding band from his finger._

_“I trusted you with my life,” he said quietly. “But as far as I’m concerned, the man I married is dead.”_

_The ring glinted as it flew through the air, impacted against Gabriel’s shoulder and fell to the floor with a **ting** before rolling across the hallway to fall over against the opposite wall. Gabriel watched its motion, then turned to look at the man standing behind the Strike-Commander’s desk. Jack Morrison may as well have been facing a complete stranger. _

_“Get out.”_

_Recoiling in shock, he took two steps back and the door closed automatically. He didn’t even feel the pain of his gunshot wound as he picked the ring up with blood-slicked fingers and staggered towards the medical wing._

_Numb and stunned as he was, the explosions didn’t even make him flinch. He kept his left hand pressed over the wound, ring jammed onto one finger, and used his right to shoot anyone who looked to be shooting at him. Gabriel was pretty sure that he hadn’t managed to remain unscathed by the time the door slid open and an alarmed Angela Ziegler practically threw him onto a stretcher, but he didn’t feel anything over the agony of his husband saying **the man I married is dead.**_

_Angela was saying something about blood loss, damage, sedation, experimental treatment, but he didn’t care. She placed a mask over his face, and the world went dark._

__

* * *

_He woke up in what he vaguely recognized as an auxiliary medical facility of some sort, with an exhausted-looking Jesse McCree slumped over in the chair against the wall, asleep. The cowboy looked dirty – sooty, maybe – and more than a little worse for the wear. Two rings, his and Jack’s, sat on the bedside table next to a glass of water, and memory surged up to remind him all over again that Jack had-_

_Weak as he was, he forced his arm to move, sweeping the rings to the floor. The soft chiming brought Jesse surging to his feet, ready to fight, but he relaxed again at seeing Gabriel awake._

_“Hey, Dad,” he said softly, dragging the chair closer and crouching to pick up the rings._

_“Don’t.”_

_Jesse froze. “Why not?”_

_He closed his eyes, but couldn’t entirely prevent wetness from leaking out. “It’s over.”_

_“You’re right. You’ve been out for a few days, but…Overwatch is gone.”_

_Somehow, he wasn’t surprised._

_“Bunch of strangers in Blackwatch uniforms were running around killing Overwatch agents. Bombs everywhere. You me and Angela, we just barely escaped. Someone with a sniper rifle got you at least once and I figured you were a goner, but whatever Angela injected you with must be pretty amazing because the wounds started to patch themselves up right before my damned eyes. Figure you could survive pretty much anything now.”_

_Jesse’s words trickled to a halt, and an awkward silence fell._

_“They didn’t find the Strike-Commander’s body. And **someone** saw the sniper get you, because you’re being reported dead, too.”_

_Gabriel didn’t say anything. What do you say when the only part of your world that **isn’t** a ruin is sitting next to you?_

_“It’s been a rough couple of days,” Jesse said finally, sounding as tired as he looked. “I’m gonna go get somethin’ to help me sleep. I’ll pick up some for you, too.”_

_“Thanks.” That one word was all he could force through his tight throat._

_Eyes shut, he listened as his cowboy son stood and set the rings on the bedside table before walking slowly out of the room. Once the door had closed, he rolled over and pressed his face into his pillow, hoping that it would smother his sobs if not his body._

* * *

_Gabriel lay in the bathtub, ignoring the chemical scents rising from the bathwater. The door to his hospital room was locked, as was the door to its adjoining bathroom, and he’d disabled smoke detectors and fire-suppression systems in both. The bathroom door was sealed and barricaded as well as he could manage, and the window was open for airflow. He had enough alcohol to ensure that at a minimum, he wouldn’t be able to sabotage himself, and possibly enough knock him out completely. As an extra precaution, he’d found a sedative pre-loaded into a syringe, and once he was in position, he jammed it into his thigh._

_He drank quickly, neither noticing nor caring whether the liquor was good or bad, and lit the cigar he’d talked Jesse into giving him. The accelerants in the bathwater would see to it that there was nothing left but ash when the fire was done with him, and he nestled down in the tub until the water came up to his jaw. When he stopped being able to hold the cigar out of the water…_

**_The man I married is dead._ **

_The rings in his hand mocked him, and he stuck the cigar between his teeth._

_Time to make good on his promise._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amazing art by [Tsu★Star](http://tsu-star.tumblr.com/post/176704722261/heres-my-bit-for-the-reaper76bigbang-story-by) in chapters 1, 4, 9, and 15! Click to see all four.


	5. Ghost from the past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Hakim calls for help, no one expects that not one, but two familiar faces are going to show up to crash the party. (Contains events from the Old Soldiers comic.)

Sombra hadn’t expected that the events of the previous night would make either of her…roommates…warm up to her, so McCree’s stilted politeness as he offered her breakfast wasn’t a surprise. She declined politely, which got him frowning in sharp disapproval, but before either of them could say anything a cloud of black smoke billowed out from under Reaper’s door.

“Dad!”

The cowboy abandoned his post by the stove, leaving Sombra to move the skillet and turn the burner off. When she turned around, he was kneeling on the floor with his arms open, and Reaper was an agitated mass of particles curdling in front of him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, practically demanding an answer with badly-concealed alarm.

“Nightmare. He’s too shook up to hold his shape. Dad, can you hear me? You’re okay, you’re safe!”

Sombra stuck one arm into the billowing cloud and sent a simple command; the swarm acknowledged it and snapped Reaper into his default form to curl up into a shuddering ball, McCree’s meaty arms holding him tight as he murmured reassurance. Feeling like an outsider, she hovered for a moment before kneeling beside McCree and lending her arms to the hug.

It was a handful of minutes before Reaper calmed down enough to mutter ‘thank you’ and push away from both of them.

“Remembered everything going to hell,” he said in answer to a question McCree hadn’t asked.

The cowboy shot Sombra a venomous look. She held her hands up in disavowal.

“It _was_ because of what she did, but it wasn’t her fault.” Reaper stood slowly and took a few steps towards the table. “I was actually able to sleep, for once.”

Sombra’s eyes widened as she caught the implication. “You mean…since you became what you are, you haven’t slept enough to have processed the trauma of _becoming_ like that.”

He nodded as he sat heavily in the closest chair, clawed gauntlets covering his mask in a gesture of exhaustion.

“Papi…” she breathed. “Oh no, Papi, that’s _terrible.”_

McCree quirked an inquisitive eyebrow at her as they stood to follow Reaper to the table.

“I’ve been through that,” Sombra said softly as she took the seat next to Reaper.

“You?” the cowboy spat as he turned the burner back on and prodded the contents of the skillet.

“She’s in an omnic body,” Reaper growled.

That was enough of a bombshell that McCree turned the burner off again and sat across from her. “Really. That’s…” He coughed awkwardly. “Y’don’t… _look_ …omnic.”

It was Sombra’s turn to quirk an eyebrow at him. “You mean you’re trying to come to terms with the fact that you jerked it to an inorganic body.”

“It’s a _very_ nice body,” he muttered, flushing. “But…food…”

“She never ate it,” Reaper growled. “I did.”

Both of them looked a bit startled at that. Sombra recovered first.

“So a few years back, I realized that augmentation would only get me so far, and I wanted to be _the best_. It took a lot of time and a lot more money, but I got a meeting with the Tehuacán Omnium and promised certain things in exchange for…” She gestured to her body. “Downside…I don’t sleep the same way. Crap builds up in my subconscious until it spills out as concentrated nightmares.”

“And is that the _only_ downside?” McCree asked skeptically.

“If you think never being able to _eat_ all the things I can smell isn’t a downside, think again.”

Reaper snorted. “At least you can _smell_.”

The look Sombra gave him was one part affront, one part incredulity, and three parts determination.

“Okay,” she declared. “I know what _my_ next project is.”

* * *

An urgent missive interrupted the monotony of the afternoon, hand-delivered by a flunky Reaper neither knew nor cared to learn the name of. He read it over twice before snorting.

McCree looked up from where he and Sombra had been talking. “Boss?”

“We have a mission. And by that I mean _you_ have a mission,” he said, pointing to the hacker, “but it’s high enough priority that you get an escort. McCree, suit up.”

The cowboy stood up from the couch. “Yessir.”

“Sombra.”

She whirled, startled into paying attention to Reaper again instead of following the retreating motion of McCree’s hips as he sauntered to his room.

“Do you have a mission outfit?”

One eyebrow arched at him. “Does it _look_ like I came with luggage?”

Reaper crossed his arms. “Do I look like I believe for a split second that you didn’t have half a wardrobe shipped to you within your first two days here? _I asked if you have a mission outfit._ ”

The look on her face – one part guilt and one part embarrassment – was answer enough.

“We’ll rectify that later. Get dressed in the most badass black outfit you have.”

“Yes sir,” she muttered, beating a hasty retreat to her room.

To Reaper’s surprise, she emerged first. The silver-studded black leather jacket and matching knee-high boots might have been overkill in other circumstances, especially paired with the vinyl pants and fingerless gloves, but in the context of a Talon hacker being escorted by Reaper, it was perfect. McCree came out of his room a moment later, and it was…gratifying…to see Sombra’s eyes widen at the change in his cowboy.

Gone was the laid-back, goofy man and in his place was the deadly mercenary who’d earned the nickname Deadeye before he’d even crossed paths with the commander of Blackwatch. His usual worn jeans and flannel shirts had been traded for sleek body armor, black accented with brassy pieces on his chest, shoulders, waist, and the brim of his black-and-red Stetson. His jacket – tailored to account for the mechanical arm – flared just under his chest to flow dramatically down to his calves in a deliberate mirroring of Reaper’s. His face, normally open and friendly, now wore a stony and impassive expression.

“Good,” Reaper practically purred as Sombra’s expression shifted to something that matched her outfit, haughty and disdainful and almost sneering. “Let’s go.”

One of the few simple pleasures Reaper still had was watching Talon goons scramble to get out of his way when they saw him coming, as if they were afraid he would not only run them over but also suck the living essence from their very bodies. He _worked_ with Talon, yes, but they were the means to the end of burning down the governments that had burned down his life. They did not own his loyalty, and they owned even less of Jesse’s. The cowboy had made it _very_ clear to Reaper that he was only there because he refused to abandon his adopted father, something Reaper was more grateful for than he could bring himself to admit.

Today was no exception; the goons blanched and scrambled, and soon enough the three of them were on their way to Egypt.

“We acquired a cache of data from Helix,” Reaper said once they were in the air. “Apparently, it’s in less than useable condition. Your mission, Sombra, is to rectify that situation.”

“Helix,” she repeated. “Giza?” At his nod, she glanced towards the pilot. “You set me to keep an eye on a certain target. Last known data points suggest Giza is the target’s destination.”

Reaper leaned back in his seat, arms crossed. “Well, well, well. Business _and_ pleasure on this trip.”

* * *

Hakim met them himself, bowing obsequiously and ushering them inside where offers of various refreshments were met with stony silence until they were withdrawn.

“You have data,” Reaper said coldly.

One of Hakim’s goons entered, bearing a storage device. Sombra touched it, spread her other hand, and screens opened up.

“This is incomplete,” she announced in disapproval. “There’s holes _everywhere_. Entire subdirectories are missing.”

“That’s all we have,” Hakim protested. “Helix locked things down after the incident. We’ll have to find another way in.”

Reaper _hmphed_. “No excuses. For your sake, hope Sombra can get something useful out of this.”

One of Hakim’s men gestured for Sombra to follow him to a room where she could examine the cache, and McCree stood up to go with her. Just in case.

“Helix will have a weakness,” Reaper continued as they left the room. “They don’t know what they’re protecting.” Once he was alone with Hakim, he growled, “There’s a second reason I’m here. You reported… _difficulties_ …and were given instructions. Any progress on our ghost?”

The change in subject did nothing to put Hakim at ease. “Nothing. He’s slipped off the radar the last few days.”

Reaper _hmphed_ again. “Well…keep at it. Once you set a trap, you never know what will fall into it.”

As if on queue, they straightened at the sound of rapid gunfire from outside, a chattering that cut off as suddenly as it started.

“ _I’ll_ take care of this,” Reaper announced, flowing out of the room as a stream of black smoke.

An unfortunately familiar voice demanded _Where is he?_ as Reaper entered the courtyard, and he cursed silently at the fact that he’d have an audience for this iteration of their little song and dance. Maybe more than one audience; the way his luck was going, the ‘ghost’ would pick today to show up. The silver lining was that Reaper had been there, in Zurich, when everything went to hell. He could play to one audience while showing his cards to the other, and no one in Talon would be the wiser.

Hopefully.

He solidified a good six feet behind Soldier 76.

“Right here, Jack,” he snarled in answer to the man’s shouted question.

At this range, even a close miss would be painful. Reaper aimed for the very edge of the soldier’s hip and fired, sending him to the ground without doing any serious damage.

“Always rushing in,” he taunted. “I know your every move before you even think it. Always have. Always will.”

Except for that day in Zurich, but he doubted the man was thinking clearly enough at the moment to remember that. He tried to come up with something the _actual_ Reaper would say in this situation.

“I’ve been looking for you since Switzerland. Knew it’d take more than that to kill you. Now here you are. This is how it should have been.”

For a moment, he wondered if that was too over-the-top, but considering how over-the-top the getup was, he figured he was good. Then something hit his right shoulder.

In the next instant, faster than he could turn his head to look around for the sniper, a shot whizzed past him to hit Soldier 76 in the shoulder –  only that shot seemed to heal him. Or maybe it was just a very good painkiller, because the man declared that his pain was gone.

Then a voice he never thought he’d hear again shouted, “GET IN THERE, JACK!”

Before he could recover from the shock of learning that Ana wasn’t dead, he’d been tackled onto his back and gloved fists were doing their best to pummel the face he didn’t have under the mask. Anger surged up – how _dare_ he act like this wasn’t all his fault, how dare _she_ take his side after he left her for dead? – and somehow Reaper was on his feet, trading punches with Soldier 76 because he didn’t _deserve_ a name, not after everything he’d done.

Just as he knocked the soldier to the ground, something hit his forearm and he decided he’d had just about enough of _that_. A combination of misting and then using the quantum entanglement of his nanite swarm let him translocate up to her perch. He’d just identified her as the ‘ghost’ that had been giving Hakim a hard time when she drew a sidearm and shot him in the neck with dome kind of dart – a tranquilizer or maybe a sleep agent. It didn’t matter. He didn’t have a bloodstream for it to work on, and he plucked it from his neck with a bark of almost-laughter.

“Hakim’s been trying to draw out the one who’s been sabotaging our operations,” he said as he slapped the weapon out of her hand. “I never expected that it’d be you…a real ghost.”

If he sounded a little bitter, well, he _was_. Granted he was working with limited data, but it sure as hell _looked_ like Ana’s ‘death’ had been a deliberate lie told by the two people he’d trusted most.

“Not to mention _him._ Guess we old soldiers are hard to kill _,_ ” Reaper snarled as she lashed out with one foot, trying to knock him off-balance and succeeding. “But I should have known. You always took _his_ side.”

One hand flashed out to grab him by the throat and he hurled himself backwards, taking her with him as he fell to the packed earth of the courtyard. While she had him on his back, she reached out and pulled the mask off.

Part of him was surprised it _came_ off; he’d certainly never tried to remove it. But a dark part of him wasn’t surprised at all, because it was part of his body and his body fell apart on a regular basis. He assumed his face was a seething mass of darkness, or possibly something resembling a charred skull, because she recoiled with a gasp and dropped the mask.

“What happened to you?” she demanded in horror.

_The man I married is dead_.

“ _He_ did this to me, Ana.” Memories of that day, of the attack that would never have happened except that the UN had tied their hands and _Jack had let them,_ welled up and stole the tiny bit of satisfaction he’d felt at her reaction. “ _They_ left me to become this thing.”

“Gabriel…”

Hearing his name, if anything, made him feel _worse_.

“They left you to die,” he spat, letting his form dissolve and causing Ana to catch herself with one hand as she fell backwards. “They left me to suffer. _Never forget that_.”

Reaper dissolved completely, letting an errant breeze carry him into the sky and then swirling down to re-form out of sight on the catwalk overlooking the main gate. He couldn’t hear what the other two were saying, but he watched as Ana stood and Soldier 76 took off his visor for a minute. They exchanged more words Reaper couldn’t hear, and then Soldier 76 climbed to his feet and they walked out of the compound together.

Hakim looked ready to collapse at the first sudden movement when Reaper swirled back into the room and solidified. Soldier 76 had obviously known he was there, and he couldn’t have gotten that information unless it had been leaked somehow, which meant there was a good chance Hakim had bugged the room. The half of his brain that wasn’t seething at the way that encounter had gone was frantically reviewing what had been said and trying to guess what a listener might be able to put together from that.

“Status on the data,” he barked.

Hakim swallowed. “Uh…Sombra said she could make something useful of it but that it would take time.”

“Then we’re done here.”

He was halfway to the door before Hakim found his voice and nervously asked, “What about the ghost?”

Reaper paused, gauntlet-fists clenching. “I doubt you’ll have any more issues on that front,” he snarled. Because _of course_ Ana would be going wherever Soldier 76 went. He’d have Sombra keep tracking them.

Before Hakim could muster a response to that, he’d left the room to find his hacker and his cowboy.

It was a quiet flight back.


	6. Road trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ana has questions. Angela has answers. Jack has too much guilt for his breakfast to stay down.

He followed Ana through the streets of Cairo, wanting to feel happier about the fact that she really _was_ alive, but his thoughts kept circling around to the moment she’d ripped Reaper’s mask off and _recoiled_.

**_He_** _did this to me, Ana._

The worst part, he thought sourly, is that he didn’t even know what he was being blamed for. Maybe Reaper was just doing the ‘evil madman ranting’ thing. Heaven knew half of the things he’d said in that fight didn’t make sense. _I know your every move before you even think it?_ If that were the case, they wouldn’t have had _nearly_ so many arguments and it wouldn’t have been such a shock when-

He cut that thought off sharply, forcing away the memory of shocked hurt on his husband’s face that day.

The safehouse was more comfortable than its decrepit exterior suggested it would be. He stripped off jacket and visor with a sigh while Ana put the kettle on, gloves and gear following until he could relax into a chair and stretch. His injured side felt completely healed, but thinking about it, he hadn’t noticed much damage to his jacket when he’d taken it off. Why hadn’t Reaper gone for the kill?

“Tea?”

Ana’s voice jerked him back into the present. “Thank you,” he said, hands out to accept the teacup and saucer being offered to him.

Ana sat with a teacup of her own, but mid-sip she paused. “Jack,” she said in a strained voice, “what happened between you and Gabriel?”

The question ripped away all pretense that he _wasn’t_ Jack Morrison, and that the man behind Reaper’s mask _wasn’t_ his husband.

_They left me to suffer_. What had happened to Gabriel after he’d left Jack’s office? He’d heard shouting, gunfire, had run through smoky and chaotic corridors shooting and being shot at, but he hadn’t found Gabriel before explosions had forced him to seek cover and hide from both the smoke and the invaders – or traitors – trying to kill anyone who moved.

“Jack?”

He put his teacup down, noting idly that his hands were shaking. “Why do you ask?”

It was a dodge, and he knew it. Furthermore, Ana knew it because she was giving him the Look Of Disapproval that can only be managed by a disappointed mother.

“I ask,” she said sharply, “because even disregarding the things Gabriel said, you’re _not wearing your wedding ring.”_

He winced.

“What happened, Jack? Between you and Gabriel. In Zurich. The base was destroyed. Overwatch was disbanded. _Your husband is working for Talon,_ and you’re wandering around as a _vigilante_ with an empty ring finger.” She crossed her arms, lips pressed into a thin line. “And that’s not even addressing what happened to Gabriel’s face. Start talking, Jack. Tell me _everything_.”

He wanted to ask what she’d seen under Reaper’s mask, but that would have to wait. She wouldn’t be dissuaded until she’d gotten answers.

“More of the same,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes. _Eye_. Shame gnawed at him. McCree’s semi-accusation that he’d been Gabriel’s confidant because Gabriel hadn’t been able to confide in Jack came back to him, guilt stirring in his belly because when things had gotten rough between him and Gabriel and he couldn’t confide in his husband, he’d confided in Ana.

“Explain to me how the conflict between doing what _should_ be done and doing what was _allowed_ led to this.”

He’d rather take a knife to the chest, but he didn’t have that option right now unless he did it himself – and he had no doubts that Ana would disarm him before he could do anything.

“Gabriel…authorized some sketchy missions. Claimed afterwards that he hadn’t given the orders. But only to some of them; he owned up to the others with no rhyme or reason.” Jack kept his gaze in his teacup, not wanting to see whatever expression Ana was wearing. “Wanted to do some pretty invasive background checks. I couldn’t sign off on that – the UN would have had my head for it.”

The memory of an unfamiliar woman in Blackwatch gear came back to him. The way she’d looked at him with cold disdain, the glint of the knife, the churning in his gut as the life drained from her eyes.

“One of his agents tried to kill me. He claimed he didn’t know who she was. Pressed for approval to violate every agent’s privacy in ways that would have stained Overwatch’s reputation permanently.” He closed his eyes, seeing Gabriel’s, wounded chocolate and despair as the ring flew- “I…may have over-reacted in the heat of the moment. Said things I didn’t mean.”

But once out of his mouth, there had been no way to take them back…

“I threw my ring at him and told him to get out. That’s the last time I saw him as Gabriel Reyes.” And also the last time he’d seen his ring. It was probably buried under the rubble in Zurich, right next to his heart, sandwiched between his integrity and his sense of self-worth.

“Meaning you saw him as Reaper,” Ana said evenly.

_I’m just going to beat you to hell and back._

_But why?_

_Because I **want** to._

“We’ve crossed paths,” Jack muttered.

“And you’re sure it was him?”

That startled him into opening his eyes to frown at her in confusion. “Jesse McCree called him _Dad_.”

Ana frowned back at him. “Jesse is part of Talon as well?”

“Sure seems to be.”

“Something about this does not seem right,” she declared grimly. “We are working with an incomplete picture. What happened to Gabriel after he left your office? He has become…” She broke off, gaze averted. “What I saw beneath his mask…was no longer human. He turned to smoke. And he said…”

“ _He_ did this to me,” Jack quoted, his voice an angry growl. “But I didn’t. Yeah, I shot him, but it just grazed his arm.”

Ana scowled. “You _shot_ him?”

“I said it only grazed his arm! He was fine!”

Her eyebrow arched in eloquent skepticism, and he swallowed the rest of his protest. The expression on Gabriel’s face taunted him again from memory, causing guilt to churn in his gut once more. Gabriel _hadn’t_ been fine.

Jack had broken his heart.

* * *

After discussing things late into the night – and searching archived news footage of the aftermath - they decided to find Angela Ziegler and have a chat with her about Gabriel. No one should have been able to survive a clear headshot like that, but they couldn’t deny that somehow, Gabriel had. So they were driving from Egypt to Switzerland, alternating who was behind the wheel and who napped in the back seat.

He’d started thinking of Reaper as _Gabriel_ again, with all the emotional baggage that carried, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. In fact, he was torn as to which was less pleasant: having spent years thinking that his husband was dead with his last words to him being _get out_ , or knowing that his husband was alive but some sort of smoke monster who enjoyed causing him pain, and it was arguably his fault.

_He didn’t kill you,_ whispered the treacherous part of his brain. _He might still care_.

Jack wished vehemently that he could drown that part with alcohol, as he’d done so often in the past, but it was his turn to drive and he doubted Ana would let him, anyway.

He couldn’t deny that, in hindsight, Gabriel had been right. There _had_ been something fishy going on. The exposés and scandals that had come to light in the aftermath had been…he couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ believe that his husband would ever approve of anything like that – except that some of them, he had. And if _Jack_ couldn’t tell the two categories apart, then there was no way the rest of the world would believe the orders hadn’t come from Gabriel. But at the same time, Jack’s hands had been tied with red tape. He couldn’t investigate potentially imaginary security breaches without solid proof; they weren’t in a world-wide war for survival anymore, and Overwatch couldn’t just do as it pleased. They had to play by the rules, toe the line, or the governments of the world would strangle them in red tape and take away everything they’d granted.

Well, take away more than they already had. Jack sighed and signaled a lane change, passing a delivery truck of some sort. Gabriel had been right; the game had been rigged against them, but what could they do? And yes, maybe Jack hadn’t handled things the best way. Would he do it differently if he had a second chance? He didn’t know. And it didn’t matter, because barring a bizarre chronal engine accident, there was no way to go back in time to _get_ that second chance.

Why was Gabriel working with Talon, anyway? The thought nagged at him as he sat in line behind a slow freight truck on a one-lane stretch. At first, he’d defaulted to assuming that Gabe had been working with the invaders/traitors the whole time, but Jesse’s assertions (and Reaper repeatedly _not killing him)_ cast that into doubt.

_They left me to become this thing_.

Jack growled under his breath. No doubt Reaper was gunning for the governments that had been the source of all the tension between them. On the one hand, he couldn’t blame the man. The idea of raging against the machine, consequences be damned, was _very_ tempting. But on the other hand, that was some short-sighted Star Wars rebellion bullshit because taking down the entire government without having a better one to put in place just meant that the regular people suffered until something _worse_ sprang up to fill the void.

How _long_ had Gabriel been working for Talon? That was an excellent question, as well. Although, if he were being honest with himself, what he _really_ wanted to know was how long it had taken Gabriel to recover from his broken heart. Or _if_ he had recovered at all. It hurt to think about what feelings Gabe might still have, but he couldn’t stop. He just kept prodding at it masochistically, like a loose tooth. It was dumb, it was his own fault, and he wasn’t sure what made him angrier at himself: that he’d done it in the first place, or that after years of coming to terms with the consequences of his actions, he still hoped that some day, the rift between them would be repaired and he could have his husband back…despite the physical violence, and in spite of the fact that the warmest sentiment Gabriel had expressed was a reluctance to kill him.

Was he an asshole for wanting a second chance? Would he be _more_ of an asshole if he didn’t? Could he even _ask_ for a second chance, and if he did, would Gabe listen?

“Stop there.”

Ana’s voice shattered the internal back-and-forth, nearly causing him to swerve off the road as he slowed and pulled into the parking lot of a roadside diner. He parked, turned off the car, and slumped in his seat to breathe deeply and slow his racing heart.

“I did not mean to startle you,” Ana said in gentle apology. “Heavy thoughts?”

“Just thinking about Gabriel,” he answered.

She squeezed his shoulder. “Heavy thoughts indeed. Let us have dinner first. Afterwards, if you are not yet ready to sleep, we can discuss him.”

Jack wondered if McCree had performed a similar duty for his father.

“Deal.”

* * *

“Was I wrong?” he asked from the back seat, stretched out with his jacket folded into a pillow between his head and the window.

“No,” Ana said firmly. “As I told you many times, there was no right or wrong. Only a series of lesser evils.”

“But he was right. There _were_ intruders or traitors, and he clearly wasn’t in on it. What else was he right about?”

“Jack…” Ana glanced at the rear view mirror, but it wasn’t angled in such a way that she could see his face. “If you acted in accordance with your heart, according to the best information you had at the time, then put it out of your mind. You cannot change the past. Do you have any reason to believe that Gabriel served as a masked mercenary before what happened in Zurich?”

The change of subject made him frown. “Of course not. Why do you ask?”

“Because Reaper has participated in various conflicts across the globe for at least the last two decades,” she answered grimly. “And if it was not Gabriel…”

“Then who was it, and what happened to him? Did he retire? Was he killed? Why did Gabriel take up the mantle?”

“And who else knows that the man under the mask is no longer the original?”

Immediately, Jack’s heart leaped to the possibility that Gabe had joined Talon as an undercover mission, seeking an opportunity to burn the organization down from within. He told it sternly to knock that off; he would not entertain false hope one way or the other.

“I’m going to sleep,” he announced. “Wake me when we get there.”

He closed his eyes, but sleep evaded him. Thoughts of Gabriel – of begging the man’s forgiveness, of being either welcomed into his arms or spurned and berated – circled until resolutely, he chased them all away and focused on the sound of the engine. It was close enough to the many, many times he’d caught a few extra winks on the way to or from somewhere as Strike-Commander, and he drifted into a deep and dreamless slumber.

What felt like moments later, he jerked awake to discover that Ana was ordering breakfast from a McDonald’s drive-thru.

“Coffee,” he croaked. “Black. Three sugars. Two sausage McMuffins.”

By the time she’d paid and collected food, he was awake enough to realize he needed to pee. They parked off to the side and took turns going inside to use the restroom, and Jack offered to drive but Ana pointed out dryly that she was still more awake than he was. They sat and ate for a few minutes, and then Ana guided them back out into traffic.

“My information says Angela is in her private residence,” she said. “We will be there shortly. Have you…” She glanced at him. “That is…does she know that you survived?”

“I haven’t made contact with anyone,” he said shortly. “You. McCree. Reaper.”

“You and Gabriel are the only ones who know I am alive,” she offered quietly. “I am afraid this will not be an entirely comfortable visit for any of us.”

Angela’s private residence wasn’t far from the city, a shining high-tech chalet nestled in a patch of woods. They followed the path around to the back and parked, exchanged a grim glance, and climbed out of the car to approach the back door. Ana pressed the doorbell button, and a moment later the intercom lit up.

“Who is it?” Angela asked crisply, just shy of a demand.

“Just a couple of old ghosts,” Jack answered.

Moments later the door opened and they were being hugged, dragged inside, and hugged again before the younger woman pulled away to wipe her eyes on her sleeve.

“You are alive,” she breathed. “I am so happy you both survived. But what brings you to my home after all this time?”

Jack looked away.

“We were hoping you could tell us about where Jesse has gone, and what happened to Gabriel,” Ana said slowly.

The joy on Angela’s face died. “They were here, but I have not seen Jesse in years. He didn’t stay long, not after…”

Alarm stirred somewhere under Jack’s heart. “After what?”

“Perhaps I should just show you. He sustained several gunshot wounds in the fighting, and I injected him with a strain of nanites I had been experimenting with. You saw the footage of our escape?” she asked as she led them through the house. “By the time we arrived here, both the sniper’s shot as well as the other wounds he sustained had begun to repair themselves. I have a small medical facility here, of course, and I kept him there for monitoring as he healed. But within a few days…”

They passed what looked like the door to said facility, continuing down the hall to a second, nearly identical door.

“…after what happened…I decided to build a new one rather than repairing it.”

Angela pushed the door open and gestured them in. The room was dingy, damaged by smoke and fire, and the door to the bathroom had been utterly destroyed by someone battering it down with a blunt object.

“He managed to find chemicals to use as accelerants.” The doctor’s voice was barely louder than a whisper. “Jesse said he asked for a cigar just before…”

Her words trailed off as Jack stepped into the bathroom, but he wouldn’t have been able to hear them anyway. The metal bathtub was warped and almost melted in places, and a dull roar filled his ears as he looked at it.

He did this. _He did this_. This was what Gabriel blamed him for, why Ana had recoiled from his face. With his body hosting a nanite swarm that could keep a bullet to the head from killing him, Gabriel had decided that the only way out was to make sure he had no body… but it hadn’t worked. His fault, _his fault,_ he’d told Gabriel that the man he’d married was dead, and Gabriel…Gabriel had…

Jack lunged for the soot-stained toilet. Coffee, black with three sugars and two sausage McMuffins joined an immeasurable quantity of guilt in being violently expelled. He was dimly aware of hands on his back, his shoulders, offering him tissues and a cup of water. He rinsed, spat, wiped his face, and sat back on his heels to breathe deeply and try not to cry while someone flushed the mess away.

“I am so sorry,” Angela was saying. “I know something had happened between the two of you, and I thought…at least you were together, but…”

“We’re together in hell,” Jack croaked, not looking at her. “He didn’t die.”

“Mein Gott,” Angela breathed. “To have survived that…but…”

Ana grimaced. “He lives, but his body…I would guess the nanites could not reconstruct him from ash, because he can dissolve and re-form at will, and his face…is not a face,” she finished delicately.

Angela leaned against one charred wall, pale and trembling, as Jack stood up. “I did this to him,” she said shakily.

“No. _I_ did this to him,” he countered. “I’m the one who drove him to that.”

“But _I_ am the reason he is now trapped in a mockery of life,” she snapped. “Perhaps you bear the responsibility of repairing the emotional damage, but it is on _me_ to repair his body!”

“Can you?” Ana asked quietly. “Can Gabriel be returned to flesh?”

Angela’s lips thinned to a grim line. “I will find a way,” she promised. “I owe him that much.”


	7. Pizza and Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sombra shares plans. Jesse shares how he and Gabe came to be at Talon. (Flashback to suicide aftermath, but Gabe’s only MOSTLY dead.)

Sombra retreated to her room as soon as they returned to their suite, which Reaper cared about only because it meant he could discuss things with McCree in privacy. It didn’t take McCree long to change into less formal clothes. While the cowboy rummaged around in the fridge and assembled a monstrosity of a sandwich, Reaper sat at the table and considered how best to phrase his bombshell.

“So what was all the commotion?” McCree asked as he sat down with his sandwich and popped open a can of beer.

“Old _friend_ showed up,” Reaper began. “Did some playing to whatever audience was listening, since I don’t trust Hakim as far as I can throw him.”

McCree took a huge bite of the sandwich. “Mm-hmm?”

Reaper sighed. “And then Ana shot me.”

The cowboy nearly choked.

“Yes, she’s alive,” he continued as McCree struggled with his oversized mouthful. “She lost the eye. I didn’t hurt her. She recognized both of us and ripped my mask off.”

Finally, with the aid of a healthy swig of beer, McCree succeeded in swallowing his bite. “That must’ve been a shock.”

“Considering the look on her face, yes. I assume I look…inhuman.”

“So…” The cowboy picked up his sandwich, reconsidered, and put it back down. “Does this change anything?”

For a long moment, possibilities and fantasies he could never put into words swam before him. He shoved them away.

“Yeah,” he said darkly, standing up from the table. “It means we have _two_ targets to be careful of instead of just one.”

He stalked into his room, grabbed a pad, and flung himself onto the bed. There were intelligence reports to sort through, missions to arrange, and right now he really, _really_ wanted to kill someone.

* * *

After several hours of arguing with corrupted and incomplete data, Sombra needed a break. She was _fairly_ certain she could get a cleaner copy hacking into Helix herself, but that would require an ally be physically present inside Helix and anyway, she didn’t really want Talon knowing _exactly_ how good she was. So she stretched and sauntered out to see if anything interesting was happening.

Jesse was on the couch watching something on a pad. Reaper was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’d the boss go?” she asked as she perched on the arm of the couch.

“Mission,” he answered idly without looking up. “He needed to vent some frustration. You got any questions, ask ‘em now because he’s not gonna want to talk about it.”

Slowly, Sombra moved from the arm of the couch to the end opposite the cowboy, knees tucked up under her chin. “I know the Shrike showed up,” she said quietly. “I know…your other dad…showed up as well. Anything else important enough that I should know?”

Jesse McCree sighed. “Yeah. The Shrike is an Egyptian sniper who knows both of them from the Crisis. Don’t say her name, but it is who you think it is.”

“Makes sense. Boss asked me to keep tabs on him; I’ll add her to that.”

For a minute, they sat in awkward silence.

“I want to help him,” she said in a soft, determined voice. “I want to find a way to give back everything he’s lost.”

The cowboy looked away, one hand going to his chest. “Don’t get yer hopes up. Some things, it’s not up to you to give back.”

The implications were something she didn’t want to discuss, but she filed them away for later. “I want to restore his body,” she clarified.

“Yeah, well, good luck with _that_.”

Sombra reached one bare foot out to nudge his thigh, just hard enough to express annoyance without being a kick. “You want him to have his body back, or not?”

“Of course I do!” He glared at her, shoving her foot away. “But he _burned to death_ , and I don’t see how hacking is gonna change that!”

“I didn’t _ask_ if you had any ideas,” she snapped. “That’s _my_ job to figure out. But for that, I need data. Information. I need to know _what happened._ ”

The anger drained out of Jesse’s face, leaving a startling amount of pain and sadness. She’d seen expressions of loss like that before, too many times. Parents who had lost children. Children who had lost parents. She’d seen it on her own face as a child, something she’d tried very hard to forget.

“Jesse,” she said, squeezing his hand reassuringly and then glancing down in surprise. Without realizing it, she’d taken his hand between hers. “I can help him. His nanites, they’re constantly building his body. But they’re only smart enough to build what’s already there. If I can program them the right way, I can tell them how to build him a body that’s _not_ just ash.”

It was only partially a surprise when she found herself crushed to his chest, smelling the spicy musk of him and feeling the warmth that radiated from his body. Her teenage self would have _killed_ to have Jesse McCree hold her like this, and angrily she started to dismiss her old fantasies. She wasn’t human anymore, he wasn’t a charismatic young man, and they weren’t going to miraculously fall in love and live glamorously ever after with Papi Gabriel beaming proudly at them.

But…

It was true, frilly romantic fantasies weren’t anything either of them would be interested in anymore. She didn’t have a human body, but he was still attracted to the one she had. And he wasn’t the young buck she’d fantasized about, but there was still warmth and tenderness under his gruff exterior. As for Papi Gabriel…well…she _was_ determined to restore his body, right?

Maybe…maybe fantasies more in line with her current reality wouldn’t be so…unrealistic.

“I was the one who found him,” Jesse said roughly. “It wasn’t even a week after everything went to hell. We were staying with Angela, and Dad was having a real rough time. I guess… _other dad_ …had said some things before shit went down, and then of course he was reported dead, body missing. Dad asked me to get him something strong so he didn’t have to deal with remembering during the night. Asked me for a cigar, too, to settle his nerves. Woke up in the middle of the night because I smelled smoke…”

* * *

_The door to the medical room had been blocked with something, but not well enough that Jesse couldn’t open it with a little brute force. The smoke wasn’t **too** bad…yet…but still not something he wanted to breathe. It took a few seconds to find a surgical mask and slip it on._

_The door to the bathroom was hot, too hot to touch with anything but his left hand, and he could hear the flames crackling._

_“Dad!”_

_He knew it was too late, that Gabriel couldn’t hear him, but he couldn’t stop himself from yelling any more than he could stop the tears that welled up. The bathroom door was blocked better; it didn’t budge and he punched it in frustration before looking around for something to use as a battering ram._

_As he worked, slamming some piece of medical equipment into the doorknob again and again, he kept his mind off of the inevitable by trying to work out logistics. Gabriel had disabled the fire alarm system, that much was clear. He had to have used accelerants for the fire to get this hot; the door would normally be bending under his blows, but it was starting to crack and splinter, and he retreated long enough to stuff a wet washcloth under his mask to protect his lungs from the superheated air on the other side before returning. He’d be battering a hole in the damn thing before he got the latch to give, no doubt. Accelerants meant water would probably be useless for extinguishing the fire, and he didn’t have much faith in the little fire extinguisher he’d found in a cabinet._

_When the door finally gave, it was because he’d broken it nearly into halves, and he paused to evaluate the situation._

_Plus side: the main fire seemed to have burned itself out, and all that was left were the secondary fires – the walls, the ceiling, the door._

_Minus side: the main fire had been in the bathtub, and he could see from here that there was nothing left but gritty, sandy ash._

_Angela came running in as he got the last of the secondary fires out – little fire extinguisher was more of a trooper than he’d given it credit for – and she stopped in the doorway, both hands over her mouth, pink bathrobe tied loosely around her waist._

_“Your face,” she whispered, but he could guess what she wasn’t saying. His skin felt tight and hot, and he probably looked like he’d spent all day in the sun before rolling in soot. Then she saw the bathtub and started crying, and he put the spent fire extinguisher down to walk her to the living room and sit her down with a mug of tea._

_While he was there, Jesse rummaged in her kitchen cabinets until he found a big, ceramic pitcher and a serving spoon that didn’t look like it got used much. A small garbage bag (biodegradable, meant to go in the compost bin) and a well-worn pastry brush rounded out his preparations and he went back to the half-destroyed bathroom to transfer his dad’s remains to a more dignified resting place._

_He couldn’t blame Gabriel, he thought as he scooped the sandy stuff into the pitcher. Whatever had gone down between him and Jack, well…Jesse knew how bad things would have had to be for his dad to not wear his wedding ring. Both rings were sitting in the ashes, a little discolored but otherwise undamaged by the fire. He brushed the ash away from them before picking them up, tears spilling down his cheeks again as he saw and read the inscriptions he hadn’t known were there. Roughly, he wiped his eyes and tucked the rings into a pocket._

_Then he noticed the movement._

_He’d used the pastry brush to gather the spread-out bits into a pile, but scooping them up with a spoon meant that pile got a little messy. As he watched, the scattered particles slowly moved back towards the rest of the pile. A hallucination, he thought. An optical illusion. Had to be. To prove it, he took a spoonful and made a neat little line away from the rest of the pile. Then he went back to scooping and brushing, transferring ash from the bottom of the tub to the pitcher. When he was done, he looked at the line again._

_It had turned into a neat little circular pile._

_Hands shaking, Jesse brushed it into the spoon and dumped it into the pitcher with the rest. It was just the nanites, he told himself. The fire hadn’t destroyed them. That’s all it was._

_But he couldn’t shake the hope that more than just the nanites had survived._

* * *

_Angela wasn’t surprised when he packed up his duffle bag and left the next day, pitcher of ash swaddled protectively in a bath towel and tucked into a backpack along with his Peacekeeper and both of Gabriel’s shotguns. She hugged him, they cried, and then he was hiking down the private drive like a moderately well-to-do hobo._

_The first thing he did was transfer a sizeable chunk of his bank account to something more anonymous. Then he found a place that would rent him a room and not ask questions. He went to a liquor store and made sure he wouldn’t have to sober up for a week, bought a family’s worth of fast food from a burger joint, and settled in to either test a theory or mourn. Probably both._

_The first thing Jesse discovered, when he tried to pull the bag out of the pitcher, was that the nanites had eaten it. He supposed that made sense, what with it being a plant-based plastic and all. He poured a double shot of whiskey into the pitcher and dropped in a handful of fries while he ate. By the time he’d finished his cheeseburger, the fries had vanished._

_Still didn’t prove anything._

_The next few days passed in a blur of alcohol and take-out. He found himself talking to the ashes, which he’d poured into an aluminum lasagna pan he’d found in a dumpster. It would have been creepier, seeing burgers and fries slowly sink under the surface, if he hadn’t been so drunk. “I don’t know what to do, Dad,” he slurred, head on his arm as he watched the swarm devour its dinner. “I can’t tell Angela. Would break her heart. But I got no one else to tell.”_

_He took a swig of whiskey, poured a swig into the ashes, and settled in to sleep with his head on the cheap desk next to what may or may not have been his father._

* * *

_It was a sound that woke him, the squeak of the floor and the realization that someone was in his personal space. Instincts surged into action and his mechanical left hand shot out in a blind nut punch while with his right, he grabbed the bottle he’d been drinking out of and lunged to his feet swinging. Both blows connected, and Jesse squinted blearily at the crumpled figure on the floor. Black armor, clawed gauntlets, the thing that couldn’t decide if it was a hooded cloak or a coat, and a mask like a stylized owl skull._

_“You gotta be **shitting** me,” he muttered, setting the broken bottle on the desk._

_After fifteen, maybe twenty years being at the top of Blackwatch’s hit list, he’d finally gotten a shot at the international mercenary known only as ‘Reaper’ and he’d taken the man out with a whiskey bottle and a below-the-belt hit._

_“Good thing I was all suited up,” he muttered as he stumbled over to his duffle bag and rummaged around in it for something to tie a prisoner op with._

_In surprisingly short order, the mercenary had been secured and dumped into the bathtub, and a plan that was probably not a smart idea was percolating in his half-inebriated brain. Jesse fumbled with the mask until he found the catches that made it release and splashed tap water onto the man’s face until he sputtered awake._

_Annoyingly, the man under the mask looked completely Caucasian. Fair skin, fair hair, and blue-green eyes. So much for Dad’s theory that the mask indicated Mexican ancestry, he thought._

_“Buenos dias, fuckface,” Jesse said brightly. “I’m guessin’ you were hired to kill me. Now, no worries, I ain’t holding a grudge. But I do want some information. How people contact you, how they pay you, that sort of thing. I don’t suppose you got any contact info for Talon?”_

_“What makes you think I’m going to tell you any of that?” the mercenary snarled with – was that a **New Jersey** accent? _

_Good thing Gabriel was dead, Jesse thought, because he’d never have to know what an insult this was. Or maybe this was insulting enough that he’d come back to life just to punish this **hijo de puta**._

_“Oh, maybe because I’m working through some heavy shit like **the death of everyone I cared for** and this ain’t the kind of place that’s eager to call in law enforcement, if you get my drift. I learned how to be real nasty from my dad, and he was wanting to get his hands on you for a long time, so there’s a whole bunch I’m pretty darn eager to do to you in his honor.”_

_The man glared at him._

_“You know you ain’t getting out of here alive,” Jesse pointed out pleasantly. “We do this the easy way, you tell me what I want to know and I put one between your eyes. You make things difficult, it’s gonna **hurt**.”_

_Still, the man said nothing._

_Jesse shrugged. “Okay. No skin off of my nose.”_

* * *

_By the time ‘Reaper’ had grudgingly given Jesse all the information he’d asked for, it was late enough that dinner was sounding good – but he still had to deal with his prisoner. He sauntered out of the bathroom and cast a sober eye over the pan of ashes, examining their texture. It seemed somehow more fluid than it should be, not quite like mud but something like quicksand. Scooping up a bit with the broken bottle and pouring it through the neck confirmed that it **definitely** flowed more than it had before. He searched the collection of empties for something with a longer neck and carefully broke the bottom to form a makeshift funnel. Not trusting the control he’d have pouring from the pan, he emptied the pan back into the pitcher. Then he emptied every open bottle or can into it, watching as the liquid was absorbed almost instantly, and added water from the sink until he had a pitcher of thin mud. _

_“Time for dinner,” Jesse announced grimly, although whether he was talking to the man, the swarm, or both was up for debate. He shoved the neck of the bottle into his prisoner’s mouth, and duct tape held it in place nicely. “Hope you’re hungry.”_

_Carefully, metal hand holding his prisoner’s head still, he poured the pitcher into the broken end of the bottle and watched as it drained down the man’s throat. He thrashed at first, then settled down to glare at his captor while he swallowed with determination. After about half the contents – he guessed the pitcher held about two liters, and it had been filled almost completely – the man started thrashing again. Jesse kept pouring, but slower. The fight seemed to go out of him and he gave up the struggle, breathing heavily and looking as miserable as could be expected._

_Finally, the pitcher was empty and the man slumped in the tub, eyes closed in defeat or possibly just sheer discomfort. Jesse peeled the tape away, removed the bottle, and slammed the man’s head against the wall until he was out cold again. Then he put the mask back in place and hauled his prisoner out to lean against the toilet._

_One hot shower later, Jesse dumped him back in the tub and changed into clean clothes. There was a pizza place around the corner, near the liquor store, and he was back with a six-pack and a large supreme within half an hour. He sprawled on the bed, turned the TV to a random action movie to mask any suspicious sounds, and settled in to have dinner…and wait. Maybe he was being a fool, and Gabriel was really dead. But maybe he wasn’t, and the swarm just needed enough of the right material to rebuild him. Either way, the mercenary would no longer be a problem._

_A few hours later, noise from the bathroom caught his attention and he paused the movie to listen. Shuffling, like someone climbing unsteadily to their feet. Footsteps, slow and uncertain. A clawed gauntlet gripped the doorframe, and Reaper stumbled into view._

_“Why the **fuck** am I alive?” he growled. “I thought I killed myself.”_

_Jesse’s heart leaped into his throat, and it took effort to keep his voice steady._

_“Morning, Dad,” he drawled, saluting his resurrected father with a can of beer. “How’d you like some pizza and revenge?”_

* * *

“You _didn’t,_ ” laughed Sombra from where she was curled pleasantly against his side.

“I did,” he said proudly. “I had plenty of time to think up the perfect line.”

“So he joined Talon for revenge on the governments that screwed Overwatch over, and you…”

“I wasn’t about to abandon my dad,” Jesse said softly, hugging her a little tighter against him.

She played with his fingers for a few moments, head on his shoulder. “You’re a good son,” she said, just as softly. “He’s lucky to have you.”

“Naw, I’m just repaying everything he’s done for me.” Jesse looked away, sure he was blushing.

“Did you ever…tell…Angela?”

He shook his head. “Haven’t talked to her since I left. Figured it would be kinder to let her think Dad was dead than tell her what happened. You really think you can help him?”

Sombra sat up and stretched. “It’ll take some work, but I can do it.” She stilled, looking away so he couldn’t see her expression. “Thank you for telling me. You didn’t have to go into detail like that.”

He leaned over, hugging her from behind, being careful to keep his touch chaste. “I don’t have many people I can confide in,” he said in a low voice. “I haven’t told that story to anyone except Dad, but it felt good to share. Thanks for listening, and if you ever need an ear…”

Her hands covered his, and she leaned back into his embrace. “I don’t have many people I can confide in, either. Maybe after I get some work done…I can share a story or two with you.”

“Ma’am,” he drawled, “it would be my _genuine_ pleasure.”

He watched as she sauntered back into her room, waiting until the door had shut before he leaned back and let the goofy grin spread across his face.


	8. Dinner and hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angela gets some answers of her own, and Jesse goes on something that may or may not be a date. Things are starting to look possible.

The mission would have been a big one – loud and messy. Target holed up in an armed compound, hadn’t moved in weeks. Talon had been waiting him out to prevent losses, because attacking with anything less than a small army was suicide.

Reaper walked up to the front door, laughed, and poured through the cracks as smoke to re-form on the other side.

No one survived.

He was in a much better mood when he returned to his suite, and Sombra being busy in her room only helped that.

“Don’t worry, Boss,” McCree drawled without looking up from his pad. “She ain’t gonna bother you with any questions, but she is gonna track both of ‘em.”

A bit of tension bled out of his shoulders. “Good. Nothing changes.”

And it didn’t – not on that front. Sombra still sat and stared at him, working on screens or on a pad. But she started sitting on the couch with his cowboy, talking quietly with him, as well. It was a good thing, Reaper told himself. The boy needed more social interaction than one surly, faceless mercenary could provide. They occupied each other while Reaper designed and created a mission outfit for the hacker, who proved to be a much more valuable asset in the field than he’d anticipated she would be.

Days turned into weeks. Quiet talking on the couch turned into Sombra joining him for his little excursions out into town for food or entertainment. Joking in the kitchen while McCree cooked. _Both_ of them vanishing into her room for hours at a time. All fine, as far as Reaper was concerned. He had more important things to worry about, like finally being able to take action against the politicians he’d identified as being most responsible for the policies that had caused so many arguments between him and…Morrison.

He refused to even _think_ the man’s first name.

* * *

In the weeks since she’d learned Gabriel was alive, Angela had lost a good deal of sleep working on a solution between her other projects and responsibilities, but to no avail. The vial of blood she’d drawn – and oh, how glad she was that she’d thought to do that – _should_ have been the key, but all she managed to do was cause it to multiply until she had several liters of healthy, nanite-seeded blood. While it was a remarkable breakthrough for blood transfusions, it wasn’t _nearly_ as useful as she’d hoped it would be for restoring Gabriel’s body.

Then she got a message.

It was anonymous, a live chat with no chat client and no usernames, and it just _appeared_ on her screen at a late enough hour that she was tempted to write it off as a sign she needed to get some sleep.

It said, simply, _I need your help._

Angela stared at it for a long minute, considering and discarding responses, before finally typing her reply. _With what?_

It seemed like forever before the person on the other end settled on an answer.

_Building a body. From scratch._

The late hour combined with the arrogance of invading her privacy for such an inane reason left Angela irrationally furious with whoever this was. _Apply sperm to egg,_ she typed, fingers driving down on the keys much harder than necessary. _Incubate in living womb for nine months._

The response came back after a brief pause. _I deserved that. Let me start over. I want to use a swarm of nanites to rebuild the body of their host._

“Gabriel,” Angela breathed. But she thought carefully before she typed – no reason to tip her hand with a stranger. _Why come to me?_

_Because you created the nanites and there’s nothing left of his body but ash._

It _had_ to be Gabriel. _How exactly do you think I can help?_ she typed grimly, thinking of the vat of useless blood.

_I can reprogram the swarm to build something other than ash, but I don’t know the medical terminology that would tell it to build a human body, much less his specific body._

Hope. For the first time since she’d learned that her attempt to save Gabriel’s life had cursed him to a hellish existence, Angela felt a spark of hope in her chest. It wasn’t strong enough to be even a feeble flame; this was nowhere near an actual solution. But it was a start.

_You are aware,_ she typed slowly, _that even having his complete DNA sequence will not restore his body as it was._

The stranger typed back, _I know. I’ll have to tweak things until they look right, but I got Papi Gabriel’s medical files and you’re very thorough in mapping a patient’s body so…thank you for that._

Angela stared at the screen, uncertain if she was infuriated by the breach of patient confidentiality or elated that it _was_ Gabriel they were discussing.

_Jesse says he’s sorry he didn’t tell you._

Anger that Jesse had _known_ warred with relief that he was apparently alive and well. _Does he still insist on smoking those cigars?_

A brief pause.

_He says he gave them up. Lost their appeal after what his dad did._

Well, at least _some_ good had come of that nightmare. She pressed her lips together unhappily. _I want proof that by helping you, I am not helping an enemy._

Almost instantly, the stranger typed back, _And I told Jesse that his dad’s two closest friends visited you. He wants to know how his ‘other dad’ reacted when he found out what happened in the bathroom._

Well, that certainly sounded like Jesse McCree. Angela sighed. _He vomited out of guilt for having driven his husband to…_ Her fingers faltered, and she took a deep breath. _…to take his own life._

 It took a minute before she noticed the reply.

_Okay. I’m checking your schedule for a good day to meet up with you. Me and Jesse both. Let you decide if you want to help or not._

Checking her-

_Looks like next Sunday evening is going to be best for you. We’ll meet you in your home with take-out from the Greek place Jesse says you like._

Angela pressed her lips together again in annoyance. _Very well. I am going to sleep now. Good night, whoever you are._

Without waiting for a reply, she shut the computer down and left the room.

Sleep, however, was a long time coming.

In the week and a half before her dinner with Jesse McCree and whoever had contacted her, she worked on transcribing Gabriel’s DNA and inserting it into a copy of the nanite programming. Admittedly, the programming aspect was not her strength, but pride demanded she proceed as if she were doing this all on her own. She had to tweak things three times before the new programming caused a test tube of replicated blood to churn as the nanites broke down blood cells and rebuilt them into a cluster of stem cells, which she promptly froze before they could get any more problematic than they already were just by existing.

One of her other projects, however, had been to develop a process by which the nanites would remove themselves from a sample of replicated blood so that it could be safely used in transfusions. In preparation for her dinner meeting, she drew a liter of Gabriel’s blood and commanded the nanites inside it to clump. The result was a marble-sized sphere of nanites, which she plucked out and placed into a reinforced container for transport before loading it with the programming she’d worked out.

Sunday, waiting for the evening, was nerve-wracking.

* * *

“It’s not a date,” Jesse protested yet again, feeling his cheeks flush. “I’m just escorting Sombra on an intelligence-gathering mission.”

Reaper made a skeptical sound. “And that’s why you’re wearing your favorite shirt.”

“It’s…I gotta blend in.”

“Sure.” Reaper drew the word out, teasing but not mocking. “Go. Have fun. Gather intelligence.”

Jesse hugged him. “Thanks, Dad. We’ll be back late. Sleep well if you sleep.”

One arm came up to hug the cowboy briefly before they separated.

Sombra, her distinctive hair hidden under an oversized purple hoodie, bounced up to hug Reaper briefly. “I’ll make sure he stays out of trouble,” she promised jokingly.

Then it was the two of them striding down the hall towards the garage, and Jesse wasn’t sure if he was excited, or anxious. On the one hand, possible progress on Gabe getting his body back. On the other hand, probable that Angela was going to give him hell.

Sombra seemed excited, or maybe just determined, but she didn’t say anything until they were speeding on their way in an unmarked car and she’d disabled all the tracking or monitoring devices in it.

“It can _be_ a date, if you want,” she said in a wicked tone that did bad things to his concentration. “We don’t _have_ to go right back.”

“You’re teasing me,” he retorted coolly. “No matter what we do or don’t get from Angela, you’re gonna be focused on the issue of Dad’s body.”

Sombra glanced out the window, and Jesse got the feeling that she was disgruntled by how that had gone. “True,” she admitted grudgingly. “But we’ll get there early. Earlier than we need to be, even with picking up food.”

Jesse’s eyebrows drew together as he watched her reflection in the window. They’d spent a lot of time together the last few weeks, but the subjects of sex and romance hadn’t come up. He’d assumed it was because, being in an omnic body, she couldn’t _do_ anything but… “Sombra…do you _want_ this to be a date?”

The way she shrank deeper into the folds of the hoodie suggested the answer was _yes_.

“You don’t eat,” he said slowly, brain racing to try to avoid saying the wrong thing and fucking this chance up. “But I do know a pretty little park nearby if you’d care to join me for a stroll.”

“I’d like that,” was her quiet answer.

Maybe she couldn’t _do_ anything, but he’d take chaste companionship and emotional intimacy and be more than content. Lord knew he’d had enough meaningless sex to make him hungry for something deeper. Jesse leaned back in his seat, smiling in anticipation.

* * *

Angela had been imagining endless variants on the scenario of coming home to find Jesse and _someone else_ in her home, but what she found instead was the cowboy sitting on the back steps, holding hands and chatting quietly with someone in a purple hoodie at least three sizes too big and black leggings with a purple skull pattern. A paper bag rested between Jesse’s feet, the logo of the Greek restaurant clearly visible on it.

“Howdy,” he said as she approached, looking like he knew she was going to give him a piece of her mind but also that he deserved it and he wasn’t going to try to get out of it. “Got the salad you like, the one with olives and feta, and fresh baklava.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t just make yourself at home,” she said sharply. “I’m sure my home security system is no challenge for your _friend_.”

He nodded to concede the point. “You’d be correct, Sombra could bypass it in seconds. But it would be rude to enter without an invitation, so we waited out here for you.”

Mollified slightly, she nodded and waited while he stood, bowed to her, and guided ‘Sombra’ off the steps. They stood there in silence until she had opened the door and gestured for them to follow her inside. Jesse immediately went to the table and unpacked the bag, salad and what looked like steak with potatoes and vegetables and the promised baklava, juice for her and beer for him, but nothing for Sombra.

She frowned.

“Sombra doesn’t eat,” Jesse said, gesturing for both of them to sit. “Her body ain’t organic, but it sure as hell is convincing.”

Well, _that_ was something she hadn’t expected. Angela sat, eyeing the other woman curiously as she pushed the hood back to reveal cranial augmentations and a hairstyle that would make her easy to remember and identify.

“Jesse didn’t know I was contacting you,” Sombra said suddenly. “He walked in on our conversation and let me know I’d gone about that the wrong way. Dinner was his idea.”

So he agreed with Sombra’s intent, if not her methods, and had offered himself up as a sacrifice. Angela met his eyes, nodded once, and picked up her fork.

Offering accepted.

Still, Angela couldn’t help asking medically invasive questions as they ate, inquiring about the construction of Sombra’s body and the nature of her mind as payback for having had her own privacy so rudely violated. Judging by the reactions Jesse had to the answers, he hadn’t known that she’d transcribed her mind into an omnic brain while still conscious for the procedure, or that transferring her bioelectric energy into it had left her organic body lifeless. But instead of the distant horror Angela felt, Jesse’s expression reflected concern and sympathy. Angela remembered how he’d befriended Genji, but this seemed more…personal…somehow.

“Tell me about Gabriel,” Angela demanded as Jesse cleared the dishes away and brought plates for the baklava.

Sombra opened her mouth, but shut it again as Jesse shook his head.

“When I was putting the ashes in that pitcher, I noticed they were moving. Not a lot. Just trying to clump together, and I figured it was just the nanites. I holed up in a motel and dropped in some fries, and the nanites ate them. Ate burgers and egg rolls and chicken bones. And then a hit man came to make sure I was good and dead, and I figured either Dad was dead and the nanites would just kill the hit man, or Dad really was still alive somehow and maybe they’d be able to reconstruct him if they had more than just some fast food to work with. Either way,” he said with a shrug, “I’d win. Turned out that not only did I get my Dad back, but he was able to take the hit man’s identity and we went undercover lookin’ for revenge.”

Angela frowned. “And that is why you did not contact me for so long. But clearly it was not as simple as that.”

“You’re right,” Jesse said evenly. “Dad couldn’t see, or feel, or taste, or smell. The nanites rebuilt a body that moves like a human body but ain’t made of the things a human body is made of. He doesn’t bleed. I don’t think he has bones that break. Whatever he’s got instead of muscles, they don’t get tired. I didn’t talk to you because I didn’t want to tell you that Dad was alive, but not really.”

“That’s where I come in,” Sombra said crisply. She gestured, and screens opened up _in mid-air_ to display chunks of code and diagrams. “This is the initial code I observed.” She pointed to one screen, then a second one. “And this is the modification I made to help him keep his shape. I assume the time he spent as a pile of ash scrambled their code, because it’s a _mess_.”

Angela skimmed the first screen, frowning. “You are correct. Fortunately, when he was able to survive a sniper shooting him in the head with no ill effects, I drew a sample of his blood to study. So we have the original programming to work with, as well as his DNA.” She looked back at Sombra, who dismissed the screens. “Until you contacted me, all I had managed to do was create liters of his blood. After our talk, I was able to alter the programming enough to cause the nanites in a blood sample to transform the blood into stem cells.”

The twin gasps that announcement got were very gratifying.

“I have prepared a second swarm with that programming,” she continued. “I will give it to you and keep this visit secret on one condition.”

“Name it,” Sombra said immediately.

“Do not use it for anything but restoring Gabriel to his own body.”

Solemnly, the hacker gave her word and Jesse swore just as solemnly that he’d hold Sombra to her promise. Angela retrieved and handed over the small container, a knot of tension in her chest loosening as Sombra checked the programming and beamed in hopeful delight. They exchanged hugs, and Jesse’s was especially comforting as he practically enveloped her in his arms. Then she was waving the two of them on their way with a flame of hope burning solidly in her heart.


	9. Change of heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reaper gets an opportunity; so does Jack. Neither of them are particularly happy about how it goes. At least Sombra’s plans are advancing nicely.

Reaper had been looking forward to an evening alone, with McCree and Sombra out on their ‘not a date’ excursion, but less than an hour later there was an urgent message for him blinking on his desk.

Annoyed, he slapped the connection open and growled, “What?”

The excited man on the other end wasn’t one he recognized, but he was at the security desk in the detention block. He threw Reaper an enthusiastic salute. “As per your orders, sir, Soldier Seventy-Six has been incapacitated and captured. He’s waiting for you in cell R.”

Morrison had been captured? Was he still traveling with- “What about the Shrike?”

“Got away, sir.”

That was more of a relief than Reaper wanted to admit to. “Fine. I’ll be right there.” Except that cell R was reserved for prisoners Talon expected him to feed his swarm with, and while he wasn’t going to kill Morrison, he didn’t necessarily want to risk the man saying anything incriminating where other ears could hear, either. “Is he still incapacitated?”

The guard started. “Uh…yes, sir.”

“Good. Prepare him for transport. I want to take him someplace with more room for me to work.”

The guard saluted again. “I’ll take care of it.”

“See that you do.”

Reaper slapped the connection closed and dissolved, flowing through the air vents and out into the detention block. Morrison had been secured with shackles around his wrists and ankles, and two of Sullivan’s squad were hauling him down the corridor to a transport van.

“There’s an abandoned building near where we picked him up,” one of them offered when she saw Reaper materialize. “We can find something further out if you think the Shrike might be lurking nearby.”

“The abandoned building will do nicely,” Reaper growled. “I _want_ the Shrike to know what I’m doing to him.”

That got appreciative chuckles.

It was a quiet drive, aside from Reaper telling the two goons where to wait for him. The abandoned building looked like the sort of place the Shrike would use for a sniper’s nest, and possibly a temporary safehouse, so that was a bonus. The ground floor had been an office of some sort with a generous waiting area. Plenty of room to beat Morrison to hell and back. He directed the goons to lay the prisoner on the floor, take the shackles off, and leave.

Whatever they’d incapacitated Morrison with must have worn off on the way, because the instant their footsteps faded, the man stirred.

“Change of heart?” Morrison asked warily as he sat up.

Reaper kicked him solidly in one shoulder, knocking him down again. “Didn’t want an audience.”

Morrison rolled away, buying space to safely climb to his feet. “Except for Ana?”

“We both know I’m not going to kill you.” They circled warily, and Reaper swung one fist but the other man ducked out of the way. “But if she interferes in this, I just might.”

“Would you really?” Morrison asked.

It was a tone Reaper remembered. Warm. Compassionate. Supportive. He threw a punch, and when Morrison blocked, lashed out and landed a solid kick to the man’s groin. “Do you really want to find out?”

“Not particularly,” he groaned, doubled up and on his knees. “Does Talon know you’re deliberately letting me go?”

Another kick, this one to the ribs. “Of course. I gave orders to have you incapacitated and brought in so that I could beat you until you _break_.”

“You’re not going to break me.”

Reaper laughed darkly as Morrison climbed to his feet again. “Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll find out together. Won’t that be fun?”

 “I don’t want to fight you.”

Morrison spread his hands in a gesture of reassurance. Reaper punched him in the stomach.

“Well, that makes one of us.”

Wincing, he tried again. “I know you’re angry about what I said-”

“Why would I be angry? _That_ man is dead,” Reaper spat. “You said so yourself. _This_ man just wants to make you suffer. It’s what you _deserve._ ”

Morrison’s hands dropped to his sides and he sighed. “You’re right. Go on, Gabe-”

A sharp backhand interrupted him. “Gabriel Reyes is _dead_.”

“Fine,” he huffed. “Reaper, then. Go on, hurt me. I deserve it.”

“Yes…” Reaper drew the word out, making it a hiss of cold anticipation. “You do.”

No more talking; he punched and kicked, slammed Morrison against walls and into broken furniture, and didn’t stop until the man gestured for a time out. He watched as Morrison coughed, pulled his visor off, and spat up blood.

The scars weren’t entirely unexpected, but seeing how worn his face was…how old and _tired_ he looked…

Most of him still wanted to beat Morrison until he’d experienced as much pain as he’d caused. But a part of him wanted to _comfort_ his ex-husband, and he wasn’t sure he liked that part.

Morrison sat up slowly, wincing, and leaned against the remains of a desk. “Feel better?” he panted.

There was no anger in his expression. Only surrender and…apology?

“No,” Reaper said quietly.

Before Morrison could say anything else, he dissolved into smoke and wisped out of the building. It wasn’t hard to find the van, and he re-formed inside it.

“We’re done here,” he growled to the startled goons.

The ride back was utterly silent. The suite, when he returned to it, was still empty. Reaper closed himself in his room and tried to empty his mind, to shove away the tangle of conflicting emotions Morrison’s face had caused, but the memory of sad blue eyes kept intruding.

* * *

“He’s gone,” Jack said shortly, letting his eyes slip shut and concentrating on finding the best way to breathe with a minimum amount of stabbing pain.

A subjectively endless span of time later, soft footsteps approached and he cracked one eye open to see Ana kneeling beside him, one of his biotic field generators in her hands. Pain melted away in the warm yellow glow, and breathing ceased to be a torment.

“Back up to the nest,” Ana ordered gently as the glow flickered out. “I need to see how badly he injured you.”

Jack climbed to his feet and followed her to the stairs. It was a slow journey up four flights to the room they’d made secure and comfortable, and he stripped without complaint so she could assess his state.

“Nothing that won’t heal in a few days,” she said sourly as she finished her examination.

He shrugged his jacket back on. “I told you – he doesn’t want me dead. He just wants me to suffer.”

“So it seems.” Her eye narrowed, sending a thrill of fear down his spine. “But speaking of death, what did he mean by _That man is dead; you said so yourself?”_

He winced.

“Jack…”

“Remember when I told you I’d said things I didn’t mean?”

Her expression said she knew very well what he wasn’t saying, but she was going to make him say it anyway before she told him _exactly_ what she thought.

“I…before I threw my wedding ring at him, I told him that the man I’d married was dead.”

Jack closed his eyes, seeing the warped and damaged bathtub, waiting for Ana to tell him how stupid that was, but she didn’t make a sound.

“I know,” he sighed. “I broke his heart badly enough that he tried to kill himself. I deserve everything he does to me. No matter what Angela says, it’s _my_ fault he’s trapped in a body made of ash.”

“And you think just letting him beat on you is going to solve anything?” she asked sharply, starling him into opening his eyes. Ana glared at him, arms crossed. “If you want to fix things between you and Gabriel, just being his punching bag isn’t going to do it.” Her eye narrowed, making him squirm with guilt like a naughty child. “You _do_ want to fix things, don’t you?”

“Of course,” he protested. Only after the words were out of his mouth did he realize they were true. Letting Gabriel beat on him was the punishment he deserved, but what he _really_ wanted was to take that bone-white mask off…to cover the face beneath with gentle kisses while he murmured apologies until the man in his arms no longer hurt. “I still love him. I was an idiot and maybe I don’t deserve to be forgiven, but I want to make things right. He’s my _husband_.”

The memory of that charred bathroom came back, making his stomach turn. Because of him, Gabriel had no face to kiss. What if Angela couldn’t find a way to repair that damage? What if, because of him, his sweetheart was trapped in that hell forever?

“What if he doesn’t _want_ things between us repaired, Ana?” he asked in sudden despair. “Until death do us part, and he…”

“Jesse McCree has not turned on him,” Ana said softly. “We must believe that enough of Gabriel remains for there to be hope. However, perhaps would be for the best if we avoided another confrontation like this until after Angela has discovered a way to return him to his own body.”

Jack sighed. “You’re right. I just hate feeling like there’s nothing I can do.”

“I know, old friend.” She laid one hand comfortingly on his shoulder. “I know.”

* * *

“You really think it’ll work?” Jesse asked quietly as he drove them back.

Sombra closed the screens she’d been working on. “It _will_ work; I just have to tweak it. And I want to take it slow.”

“Slow?” He frowned at her. “Why?”

“He’s been like that for _how_ long?” Sombra waited, but Jesse didn’t answer her. “Exactly. If he gets everything back at once, he’ll go into sensory overload. It needs to go slowly so that he has time to adjust. But he’s not going to want to go slow. If he knows I can give everything back all at once, it’s going to be like dangling raw steak in front of a starving wolf. We gotta keep this quiet. If he asks, we were extorting information from a medical professional.”

Jesse chuckled. “Or I just tell him it _was_ a date.” The hacker didn’t respond, and he glanced over at her to find her looking pensively at him. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No…” She looked out the window. “I was just checking my memory. That was the first date I’ve been on where I didn’t have an ulterior motive.”

He reached over to take her hand, pulling it gently towards him and kissing her knuckles. “Well, it won’t be the last. How’s about you and me watch the sun set together? Maybe…Wednesday? If the weather’s good?”

Sombra reclaimed her hand, but not before squeezing his briefly. “Or maybe we could watch a movie. Something scary. And you could hold me through the scary parts.”

“Y’don’t strike me as a lady who scares easily,” he pointed out. “If you want to be held but you don’t want anyone saying anything, maybe we could watch a movie in your room and I’ll just hold you without you needin’ to find an excuse.”

“Any movie I want?”

“Any movie you want.”

“Wednesday night?”

“I’ll let Dad know as soon as we get back.”

Sombra smiled at him. “Jesse McCree, you got yourself a date.”

He whooped. “I ain’t never been on a second date before,” he said jokingly. “New experience for both of us.”

That made her laugh. “Okay, I’m turning the tracking systems back on now.”

They were quiet for the rest of the drive, and while they walked through the base to their suite.

“Looks like Dad’s gone to bed,” Jesse said quietly, taking in the empty common room. “Guess I should do the same.”

Sombra went on tiptoes to hug him. “Sleep well. I’ve got work to do.”

Blushing slightly, he hugged her back. “Good luck. I’ll see you in the morning.”

They both went to their respective rooms, but while the cowboy stripped and climbed into bed, the hacker flopped into an oversized purple beanbag chair and opened screens.

Now that she had a better sense of what the programming _should_ look like, she could write a patch that would command Reaper’s swarm to rebuild one thing at a time. He wasn’t _completely_ ash; he did have things that served as muscles and bones. It was closer to her artificial muscles than flesh and blood, but she could work with that. His _brain_ , though. She knew that every so often, he needed to replenish certain things from a living victim. If she restored his organic brain-

But could she? Wouldn’t it need a supply of blood to give it oxygen?

Sombra opened another screen. Maybe having the swarm build an omnic brain would be best for the time being. That way, she could restore some sensory input and get him used to that…give his swarm a chance to adapt to breaking down and restoring complex structures before she worried about little things like blood and hormones.

As she coded, she pondered the irony of getting closer to restoring Papi Gabriel’s organic body by making his body _less_ organic.

* * *

After a long night of struggling to forget Morrison’s dumb sad eyes and failing, Reaper stalked out of his room with annoyed wisps of black smoke trailing after him. McCree was making breakfast with Sombra sitting at the table, doing something on her screens. That by itself wasn’t unusual, with how the hacker had slipped into their little pseudo-family, but there was a cardboard box of what seemed to be omnic parts sitting at his place.

“Buenos dias, Papi,” Sombra chirped brightly as he stopped to glare. “Got a patch for your swarm. It’s a big one,” she warned. “Should restore your sight and your sense of smell, but you’ll need something more filling than pancakes and bacon, so…” She gestured at the box.

Sight.

Not that Reaper was _blind_ , per se. The skull mask contained some very sophisticated optical equipment meant to provide a robust visual display that augmented the wearer’s sight. But he had no eyes to see the display, so the “extra” information was all he had. It was functional, but frustrating. Combined with a lack of tactile and olfactory input, it made him feel like he’d been living swaddled in cotton for the last few years while playing a really shitty VR game.

“Give it,” he growled.

Sombra stood and laid both hands on his chest. A tingle swept through his body, buzzing in his brain, and suddenly he _needed_ -

His hands dissolved as the hacker backed up, streams of smoke reaching for the box, devouring its contents slowly as the dry ache in his face slowly faded into tingles, and then…

The world snapped into focus. Colors, shapes, textures he hadn’t seen since he’d woken up in a motel bathroom. He took a deep breath, ready to sigh, and was suddenly aware of coffee, and bacon and the sweet scent of pancakes cooking in the skillet and a slight musk that could only be his cowboy son and he thought he might cry except that his eyes had no eyelids or tear ducts.

“Dad!”

McCree was hugging him, guiding him to a chair, and then Sombra pushed a mug of coffee into his clawed gauntlet hands. He stared into it, admiring the dark liquid and the faint steam rising from it, inhaling the scent and just drifting in wonder that he could _smell_ again. By the time the wonder faded, McCree was almost through eating his breakfast and Sombra was beaming at both of them.

“It worked,” he said gruffly. “Did you want to be adopted? I’m legally dead but I’m sure that doesn’t matter to you, and you deserve a reward for this.”

Sombra grinned at him. “Oh, this is only the beginning,” she warned jokingly. “I’m already working on a way to let you feel. Gonna be tricky, building artificial skin, but I figure you might want to be able to take that armor off and enjoy a hot shower, and synthskin is easier to program than real skin that needs blood and nerves. Not that I’m giving up on getting you your body back!” she assured him hastily. “But that’s going to take longer and I want to let you feel things before then.”

“That’s it,” Reaper growled in a mock threat, “you’re part of the family now. No arguments.”

“Oh no,” Jesse drawled unconvincingly. “Such horror.”

Sombra just hugged Reaper with a squeal of delight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amazing art by [Tsu★Star](http://tsu-star.tumblr.com/post/176704722261/heres-my-bit-for-the-reaper76bigbang-story-by) in chapters 1, 4, 9, and 15! Click to see all four.


	10. Synthetic excitement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reaper makes progress on his vendettas, but he’s more enthused about Sombra’s progress.

Over the next few weeks, Reaper channeled his impatient desire for skin into plotting and enacting the assassinations of close to two dozen of the people he remembered Morrison complaining about most. Some of them were still in their positions of ill-gotten power, doing things that reminded him of the corrupt government that had been in control when he was growing up. Others had retired to live comfortably on wealth that should have been spent serving the people. He alerted Sombra to each target before he moved on them, letting her get digital fingers on their money. The instant he performed a hit, she siphoned the estate dry.

He had no doubts that she put aside a certain percentage for her own use (or his, she insisted at least once) but the majority of it got shuffled around and put to use helping the people it had been stolen from. Schools or libraries whose budgets had been slashed got anonymous donations. Shelters and food pantries, medical centers and small businesses, she found a way to provide needed supplies or ease their financial burdens another way. Sometimes, she paid rent in advance for struggling families. Sometimes she bought debt wholesale and forgave it. Once, she loaded a small drone with stacks of small-denomination paper money and made it rain in a neighborhood struggling to not starve.

More than once, he announced to her and McCree that watching her redistribute the money was _almost_ more satisfying than the kills themselves.

A slower, but still gratifying, side effect of his assassinations was the public backlash against corrupt politics and politicians. Talon wasn’t exactly thrilled with that aspect of his private excursions – or at least, _some_ factions in Talon weren’t. Others used his actions as leverage to keep their pet politicians on their toes.

Soldier 76 and the Shrike were conspicuous in their silence. According to Sombra’s tracking, they _were_ active, just not anywhere that Talon was. Reaper wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Denied and furious, if anyone asked – the coward was running away because he knew how badly Reaper would break him given the chance. But privately, he felt…relieved. The memory of blue eyes, apology and acceptance, haunted him when he managed to sleep, and he _had_ been successfully sleeping more since Sombra had restored his sight.

It was a welcome distraction when she had a shipment of synthskin materials delivered and announced that she had finished his next patch.

“It wasn’t easy,” she warned him as he sat on the floor in front of the various packages. “I had to program your appearance on top of the tactile functionality. You won’t have pain or pleasure, but you’ll have pressure and temperature.”

“In other words,” he growled teasingly, “I still can’t masturbate.”

“I am _not_ programming that,” she declared firmly. “It’s _way_ too much work when I’m going to be restoring your body eventually anyway. Programming your body hair was annoying enough.”

“Am I going to have eyelids?”

Because, of course, he could turn his eyes _off_ but it wasn’t exactly the same.

“And eyelashes, and eyebrows, and nose hair,” she confirmed, hands on her hips. “I got into your medical records and reproduced everything down past the level of the human eye’s ability to differentiate. Now, you got any more comments you want to make, or you want your skin back?”

“Things that sound extremely bizarre out of context for three hundred, Alex,” he muttered. “Yes, you little delinquent, I want my skin back.”

Sombra rubbed her hands together and laid them on the top of his hood. The tingle he’d felt before swept through his body, leaving _hunger_ in its wake, and he dissolved into a cloud of smoke so that he could devour the materials more quickly. It was difficult to describe what it felt like to have his swarm take in a proportionally large amount of foreign matter. The closest he could come was _heavy_. He felt like a fat brass Buddha while still being a cloud of smoke, and solidifying was like his particles were braiding themselves together instead of just clumping.

When the process finally completed, he could _feel_ his armor. Although the swarm still recognized it and would take it with him should he dissolve and re-form, it understood that the armor was not actually a part of his body.

He _had_ a body.

He had a _body_.

Suddenly, he needed to get _out_ of the armor that had defined his shape for the past few years, but before he could do more than just come to that realization, a bundle of fabric hit his mask and fell into his hands.

“Y’don’t have any clothes, Dad,” McCree said dryly. “So, there: sweatpants, socks, boxers, tee-shirt, and a hoodie. Have fun.”

Reaper climbed to his feet – he had _feet_ – and clutched the bundle to his chest. “You’re the best son ever,” he growled. “Your bedtime is never. Sombra, if you would like his hand in marriage it’s yours. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

He didn’t wait for a response. The instant his door had closed behind him he dropped the clothes and started tearing at the armor, trying to find catches and buckles he’d never had to think about before. A thought flashed through his head, a montage of all the times his husband had helped him out of armor over the years, but he pushed it away and dissolved carefully into smoke, seeping out of the armor and re-forming in the center of the room completely naked.

He closed his eyes and, for a long minute, just _felt_. The stirring of air currents against his skin, in his hair. The slight chill. The carpet beneath his bare feet, all the places where his new skin touched itself. Then he opened his eyes and examined as much of his body as he could see. It was all there – every scar, every mole, his _fingerprints_ , his pride and husband’s joy. Everything was exactly the way it should be, and he found himself curled into a ball on the floor with his eyes shut, shaking as his sense of _self_ was forcibly restored.

Once that storm had passed, he stood carefully and found a mirror. The face that stared back at him was _him_. His eyes. His scars. His _teeth_ and _tongue_ and he didn’t want to think about how hard that must have been to program. He ran _his fingers_ over the salt-and-pepper peach fuzz on his scalp, through the short, wiry hairs of his moustache and beard, lost in wonder that she’d actually taken the time to program the grey hairs speckled through it instead of just giving him a digital dye job.

Now he was disappointed that Soldier 76 and the Shrike had been avoiding Talon, because he wanted to show-

Trembling, he cut the thought short and turned to the shower. The cool tile beneath his feet, the cold shock of water that warmed quickly, all distracted him away from thinking about Morrison. Then the hot water _really_ kicked in and he stood there, eyes closed, letting it wash over him and rinse every thought out of his head.

Eventually, he turned the water off and grabbed the towel that had been hanging in his bathroom for at _least_ two years and put it to use at last, reveling in the feel as he rubbed it against his wet body. With it wrapped around his waist, he emerged to find the clothes he’d dropped earlier and put them on. Socks, thick and plush against his feet. Boxers, light and smooth. Sweatpants, soft and fuzzy. He tugged the shirt on quickly and pulled the hoodie over his head, glorying in the feel of the fabric against his skin, tugging the hood up over his head and the sleeves down over his hands.

Sombra may not have been able to program pain or pleasure into his new skin, but just _having_ it was pleasure enough. He curled up in bed, hugged an armful of blanket to his chest, and drifted from sheer contentment into the best sleep he’d had in several years.

* * *

Sombra watched in silence with Jesse as Reaper vanished into his bedroom, and neither of them said anything until they heard the shower start.

“So…” Jesse wasn’t looking at her. “Did you _want_ my hand in marriage? Unofficially, I guess, since you don’t legally exist.”

She made a soft, amused sound. “Once we take care of Talon, I’ll make myself an identity. Whether or not we have a fancy ceremony depends on if Papi wants to come back from the dead or not.”

The cowboy choked. “Wait – you really _do_ want…?” He grinned as she lowered her eyes. “Aw, honeysuckle, don’t you worry. Once Dad works through the last of his hit list, he’ll turn on our unsuspecting hosts, so you think about rings and how you want me to propose when the time is right, and I’ll do my best to make all your fantasies come true.”

_“All_ my fantasies?” she asked quietly, looking up at him.

He brought her hands to his lips and kissed them gently. “Every last one.”

Sombra went up on her tiptoes, but instead of kissing his cheek, she whispered in his ear. “Remember the small box I left in my room? It’s for you.”

“Oh, now you got me all curious,” he teased as he swung her into his arms. “Why don’t we mosey on over to your room and you can show me?”

She giggled as he carried her into her room and set her on the bed, and then with a smile of anticipatory glee she handed him the smaller cardboard box. He opened it carefully, eyebrows arching as he took in the tube-like shape and realistically sculpted lady parts that adorned one end.

“You got me a stroker,” he said, surprise making his words flat. “A really _expensive_ stroker.”

“I got _us_ a stroker,” she corrected, plucking it from his grasp and standing up to model it like a game show hostess showing off a prize. “Three speeds of vibration and five patterns of stroking action. Internal sensors detect heart rate and velocity and adjust settings according to how intensely you’re going at it.”

“But-”

The rest of the sentence dried up as Sombra hiked the skirt of her dress up, braced one foot against the bed, and slotted the stroker into a socket he hadn’t expected to exist.

“Give me a minute,” she murmured, fiddling with screens. “Linking its internal sensors to my systems.”

“To your-”

“So it feels good when something trips the sensors.” The grin she directed at him made his pants feel _way_ too tight. “And when _you_ climax…so will I.”

“You…” Jesse looked like he was struggling to string a coherent thought together.

“I had a _lot_ of fantasies about you, Jesse McCree,” she announced, putting her hands on his shoulders as she straddled his lap. “And I have been wanting to do this for a _very_ long time.”

She kissed him.

* * *

When Gabriel awoke, it took him a minute to realize why everything felt _off_. He was warm, he was comfortable, he could smell Jesse making something Italian – probably baked ziti – but he could hear feminine laughter that wasn’t Ana and his mouth tasted…

Ah, that was it. His mouth _didn’t_ taste, that was Sombra, and he’d been self-identifying as Reaper for the last couple of years because until now, his body had been made of ash and nanites.

He climbed out of bed and stretched, feeling the same generic response from whatever his body had instead of muscles. He had skin, he looked like himself, but underneath he was still a construct that didn’t bleed and couldn’t die. He wasn’t _just_ Reaper, but he wasn’t fully Gabriel either…and being Gabriel brought a whole pile of emotional baggage he didn’t want to deal with just yet. Suddenly alarmed, he checked his left hand – but the skin of his ring finger showed no sign it had ever worn a ring, and he wasn’t sure if he felt bereft or relieved. He wasn’t even sure what had _happened_ to the rings after he’d lost consciousness in Angela’s bathtub. Swarm ate them, probably. He wasn’t sure if what he felt at _that_ thought was relief or loss, either.

Resolutely, he sat down next to the pile of armor he’d wisped out of and fiddled with it until he’d figured out how it worked. Then, piece by piece, he put it back on. The man whose armor it had been hadn’t publicly identified as anything but ‘Reaper’ despite no doubt having an actual identity; he could do the same. He was Reaper, but Reaper was not the entirety of who he was. It was a cover identity, like Batman, if Bruce Wayne had been declared dead after a missile strike on Wayne Manor. Until he’d gotten revenge on everyone who’d ruined his life, he would remain Reaper and leave the rest to figure out when he got there.

He walked out of his room holding the mask in one hand. Two elated looks faded into wary confusion.

“Dad?” McCree asked.

“It’s perfect,” he said shortly, laying the mask at his place and joining Sombra at the table. “But I can’t be Gabriel Reyes just now. I’ll take the mask off for meals. I’ll take the armor off in my room. I just can’t…” He closed his eyes, clawed fingers clenching on the edge of the table. “There’s too much to deal with and no point in wasting time or energy on them if they can’t be resolved, so I’m still Dad and Papi but aside from that…”

Sombra hugged him. “I understand,” she murmured. “That’s why I’m Sombra. Maybe some day I’ll have another identity and I’ll figure out how to use your swarm to build myself an organic body, but for now…this is who and what I am.”

When Sombra released him, he opened his eyes to see Jesse sitting across from him with a big plate of baked ziti.

“You do what you need to do, Dad,” the cowboy said quietly. “I support you a hundred percent, you know that.”

He did, and it helped.

Sombra took McCree’s hand. “I know I just finished a huge upgrade, but I’m going to start on the _big_ one. Full body. Actual DNA. I know how much it sucks being stuck with a halfway body. Catch is to fuel it…”

He snorted. “There’s always someone in cell R for when I get… _hungry_. I’m guessing this will just be less for the cleaning crew to deal with when I’m done.”

“I don’t know if that’s unsettling or reassuring,” she muttered. “But at least I don’t have to figure out how to get a live pig in here or something.”

“It’s good to have you back, Dad,” Jesse said quietly. “Even if it’s just your face. I can’t wait until you can help me eat all this baked ziti and actually be able to _taste_ it.”

“Just wait,” he teased. “Once I can taste again, I’m making a huge batch of tequila-lime pulled chicken and we’re gonna eat tacos until we puke.”

Jesse whined. “My mouth’s watering just thinking about it. Sombra, darling…”

She pulled open a handful of screens. “I’m _working_ on it, Jesse. I’m coding as fast as I can.”

Reaper laughed.


	11. Back to life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One plan comes to fruition while another takes shape and Reaper adjusts to experiencing all kinds of things again.

Sombra could hear the smirk in Reaper’s growl as he announced that he was going out to cross the last name off his hit list. The instant the door closed, Jesse paused the movie they’d been watching and their closeness on the couch went from cuddling to conspiring.

“Letting Angela know Papi’s progress and our plan,” she said absently as her fingers flew over one screen.

“What about…”

“Sending her the files on Widowmaker, too.”

“Good.” Jesse glowered off to the side. “She didn’t deserve what Talon did to her. If we can find a way…”

“We still have to get _us_ out,” she pointed out dryly.

Jesse grimaced. “Yeah. Any progress on that front? Dad’s going to start looking for something new to chew on now that he’s done with his list.”

“Still waiting on…” Sombra’s fingers slowed, then stopped as a red box started flashing on one screen. It opened, and the writhing, blinking omnic language spilled out. “Possibly,” she said grimly. “Message from Maximilien. Ogundimu’s planning his prison break.”

“Doomfist?”

“Uh-huh. He’s not going to like Vialli’s take on things. That will give us all kinds of opportunity as he moves against Vialli and tries to consolidate his power, but we’ll have to have our plans in place because our window will be _tiny._ ”

“We should get Dad in on it. How long until the prison break?”

“Estimate is three weeks. And before you ask, if I don’t do _anything else,_ I can get the full-body coding done in three days.”

“Giving Dad about two weeks to get used to being himself again and decide it’s time to burn Talon to the ground.”

“Except that you can’t just dismantle an organization like Talon without a _lot_ of bloodshed.”

Jesse flopped back against the couch with an exasperated groan. “I _know_.”

_“Unless_ someone takes the reins and reorganizes.”

“And Maximilien is going to do that?” he asked, trying not to sound skeptical.

Sombra grinned at him. “That’s been the plan. Before Talon caught me, I was helping him get digital fingers into everyone’s business. We just need an opportunity to clear the playing field and Talon will find itself being used for peace and prosperity. Turns out war is bad for casinos and selling expensive luxuries to rich people,” she added dryly, eliciting an amused snort from the cowboy.

“Well, I’m sure Dad’ll be willing to gun down the heads of Talon once they’re no longer useful in getting him revenge on other targets.”

“That’s what we’re hoping for,” Sombra said smugly. “There. All my correspondence is done. Time to get coding.”

Jesse leaned in to lay a gentle kiss on her cheek. “Anything I can do to help, darling, you just let me know.”

* * *

Reaper knew something was up when he returned from his last assassination to find Sombra coding madly, McCree loading the ingredients for pulled tequila-lime chicken into the fridge, and stacks of clothing piled on his desk.

“Sombra had a breakthrough,” McCree called as he closed the refrigerator door. “I wanna bake you a cake to celebrate you being able to eat again. What kind of cake d’you want?”

“A cellular peptide cake with mint frosting,” Reaper growled back immediately, gathering up the clothes.

“So…white cake with pudding mixed in to make it really moist, then?”

Reaper looked up as it sank in that his outdated and obscure pop culture reference hadn’t fazed the cowboy.

“You pulled that one on me six times,” McCree pointed out dryly. “I could do a mint chocolate chip thing; you liked that the last time I made it.”

He had, but he wanted to be difficult. “Cherry chocolate chip.”

McCree gave him a shit-eating grin. “With mint frosting?”

“Only if you make it look like Troi’s torso.”

“Riker’s torso with cherry and dark chocolate. Got it.”

Reaper chuckled. “I can’t argue with that.”

As he picked up a stack of shirts, something rolled out from between them. Something with a tube-like shape and a sculpted Caucasian asshole on one end. He looked up.

“Don’t even try to pretend you’re not gonna make sure everything works,” McCree said blandly. “You’ll thank us later. Sombra’s got one and it is…” He trailed off, letting out a low whistle and shaking his head in awe.

Reaper tucked it back into the shirts. “Is that why I keep hearing _yee-haw_ from Sombra’s room at night?”

McCree shrugged. “It’s better than my room, right? I mean…we got thin walls here.”

“Indeed. Thank you for keeping to her room while I’m theoretically sleeping.”

He carried his armload of clothes into his room and pretended he didn’t see the grin on his son’s face.

The next two days passed in tense silence. Sombra spent all her time in a chair, coding. Reaper tried to concentrate on his intelligence reports, but not having assassinations to plan nagged at him, and he found himself remembering how his Talon contacts swore up and down that they didn’t know anything about the attacks on Overwatch – and Blackwatch – despite Gérard’s being certain Talon was behind them.

Well, it wasn’t like he didn’t have access to Talon’s intelligence and mission reports. He started digging and discovered, to his deep annoyance, that his contacts had been telling the truth. They _hadn’t_ known about the attacks. More annoying, however, was the _reason_ for that. They had been deliberately kept in the dark because of their contact with him. Talon _had_ been behind the attacks, and more than that, they had been _playing_ him. The same bone-deep fury he’d felt in Venice, watching Antonio smirk at him, rose up to make his blood boil.

Okay. It was time to burn Talon down. Just as soon as-

“Done!” Sombra closed her screens and stretched her fingers. “Jesse, start that cake!”

From the kitchen, McCree called back, “It’s already cooling, honeysuckle.”

Sombra and Reaper looked at each other and exchanged a sheepish shrug that they’d both been so engrossed in their respective screens that neither of them had smelled the cake baking.

“Let’s get this party started,” Reaper growled, moving out from behind the desk to meet Sombra in the center of the room.

“You got a victim lined up?” she asked as she rubbed her hands together, something small and silver flashing between her fingers.

He _hmphed_. “There’s three waiting.” Arranging suitably expendable prisoners to be held in cells R, S, and T had taken all of half an hour.

“Okay. Here goes…”

Her palms tingled against his chest as whatever she’d been holding dissolved into silver mist. The sensation swept through his body in a heartbeat and he was turning to smoke before he could even take a breath, _hunger_ making it hard to think, flowing through the air vents and coalescing briefly in front of the guard. Not completely, just enough to snarl out, “Call no one until I return.”

The guard went pale and swallowed, but Reaper didn’t wait for verbal confirmation. He flashed down the hall and into cell R, the cloud of his substance surrounding the prisoner so quickly that she didn’t have time to gasp before he was tearing her apart, ripping out molecules and strands of protein and weaving them back together with a hundred thousand tiny arms while the unused bits, the worthless cells and particles and cell clusters, fell to the floor like a gentle but exceedingly macabre dusting of snow.

Not enough. It wasn’t _enough_.

He’d made sure that the resident of cell S was a hefty man. Hired muscle caught breaking into the wrong building, easily three hundred pounds of bald, tattooed, pugnacious attitude problem and hopefully more than enough raw material to rebuild his body with. The thug was already shouting for someone to let him out when Reaper seeped under the door of cell S to swirl around his ankles like the manifestation of doom. The screaming stopped shortly afterwards, but the harvesting continued for what felt like forever.

Reaper stood up, finally, one gauntleted hand against the door for enough balance that he didn’t fall over before managing to lean against the wall. He felt… _unwell,_ although he knew it was just sensory overload. Dizziness, pounding pulse, a churning stomach and a cold sweat all wrapped up in muscles that trembled from head to toe, and he _ached_ in what felt like every cell of his body. He panted, realized he was hyperventilating, and focused on taking deep, slow breaths. That calmed his heart rate and eased the dizziness; the trembling took another minute. He counted his breaths, and when he reached a hundred he felt…better. Hungry, starving almost to the point of nausea, but his body was no longer scrambling to sort out all the processes and sensations that had been subconscious or automatic.

His body had to calibrate itself, he thought as he stepped out of the cell and began the walk back to the security station, feeling muscles shift and bunch under his skin. Made sense. Everything was literally brand new and had to find its balance for the first time.

“Call the cleaning crew for cells R and S,” he rasped at the guard as he passed, but his voice sounded…

Alarm thrilled along his nerves and he dissolved into the air vents before the guard could react because _shit_ , his voice sounded…wrong. Different. Like it was rusty from disuse, _but like his actual voice_ instead of the forced growl he’d been reduced to. The possibility of being identified by that was distressing enough that he was pouring out into the common area and coalescing before it occurred to him to wonder if he could still _do_ the smoke thing anymore, but apparently he could. Good to know. Of course, the same corner of his brain that had so objectively contemplated his body’s calibration was now calmly pointing out that _eating_ was something his new body never done either, and it was liable to freak out _just a little_.

“Water,” he demanded as soon as he was solid.

McCree was holding out a glass within moments of him getting the mask off, and he forced himself to sip it slowly. It tasted bizarre for the first half a dozen sips, taste buds going wild over having something to do for the first time. His stomach couldn’t make up its mind whether it was going to churn harder, or subside. He stopped at about half the glass and handed it back.

“I need to change into actual clothes,” he said, turning away from them and avoiding the questions they looked like they were going to explode from not asking.

He’d thought the synthskin was amazingly sensitive. Sliding clothes onto _actual_ skin proved that he’d just been suffering from sensory deprivation for long enough that _any_ sensation had felt amazing. It was with a conscious effort that he kept his hands carefully away from his groin because while McCree was correct in that he _did_ intend to make sure everything worked, he did _not_ want to know what orgasm felt like to a brain that had never experienced pleasure before.

When he finally emerged in sweatpants and a generic black tee, McCree offered him a wooden spoon that had been mostly scraped clean of dark chocolate frosting. He took it, but made sure to sit at the table before licking. Sure enough, his mouth went _crazy_ and he just sat there, swallowing mouthfuls of saliva and breathing slowly, until the sensations had faded.

“Still calibrating,” he said, making Sombra lean back in relief and understanding. “Every new sensation is _very_ intense because it’s the first time my body has experienced it. But I’m starving, so give me a piece of plain bread and my water and in twenty minutes we can have cake.”

Sombra leaned forward as McCree took the spoon back with a chuckle. “Do you even _have_ gut flora?” she asked curiously.

He shrugged. “Fuck if I know. Maybe the nanites digest for me. We’ll find out.”

Plain bread and water had never tasted so good, and twenty minutes hadn’t passed so slowly since the Omnic Crisis. But the cake was worth waiting for, as was the milk he washed it down with, and McCree promised to make him a sandwich for dinner. He hugged both of them and retreated to his room to let his new body experience sleep for the first time, hoping that it wouldn’t be filled with either nightmares or indigestion.

It wasn’t.

* * *

The next two days were intermittently intense as he re-experienced countless things for the first time. Neither his cowboy son nor their omnic hacker addressed him as anything but Dad or Papi, leaving him comfortable in his own skin but suspended between two identities that no longer really fit him. He was firmly Gabriel again, but he couldn’t completely _be_ Gabriel until he’d done something about Talon. At the same time, wearing Reaper’s armor an mask only drove home that he could no longer self-identify as the mercenary; it was even more of a self-assigned role than it had been once he’d gotten skin, and it chafed at him.

The first time he made sure _everything_ worked, he did it manually and floated in afterglow for about ten minutes. The tissue was still distinctly used when he scraped his brain together enough to throw it out, which was a relief. Good to know his swarm understood the concept of substances that were supposed to leave his body and he wasn’t at risk of ruining the plumbing every time he used the toilet. He frowned at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, feeling certain that his hair was _longer_ , because hadn’t it been peach fuzz when Sombra coded it?  Hair didn’t grow _that_ fast, but here it was an inch long, He must have mis-remembered.

Needing to eat was remarkably easy to adjust to – he was already accustomed to McCree making sure he had food, so now he ate it and enjoyed every bite instead of just assimilating it. Remembering that he needed to sleep was much harder, and he suspected that Sombra pointedly dragging McCree into her room at ten on the dot each night was her way of telling him to go to bed. Surprisingly, however, the biggest adjustment was his voice. Re-learning how to growl wasn’t easy. He spent an hour or two on it and went off to his meeting with Vialli fighting terror – but Vialli didn’t seem to notice. That bought him a week to try to get better at it.

He made pulled tequila-lime chicken and feasted on soft tacos with his cowboy son. He reveled in pancakes with bacon and real maple syrup. He rediscovered coffee and ate cake, gorged on pizza and subs and hot wings, burgers and fries and soda. And he confirmed that his hair _was_ growing unnaturally fast, probably due to the newborn hair follicles not knowing what normal was. It was already long enough to start curling, and he was tempted to shave it off, but Sombra and his cowboy son convinced him to leave it. In a way, it was a symbol of the new, uncharted future they were working towards, and he grumbled a few times to keep up the illusion but suspected that neither of them were fooled.

After about a week, he remembered the surprise McCree had left in his pile of shirts and tried it out. The way it clenched around him, reacting to his motions, brought back vivid memories of the last time he’d been intimate with his husband. Although it made the experience that much more amazing, he went to bed missing Jack so much that it hurt. Not the tired, scarred man with sad blue eyes, but his Sunshine – the man who made him feel full of light just by smiling at him, the man who always wound up wrapped around him sometime between falling asleep and waking up, the man who’d put a ring on his finger with an inscription of _All my love_ and to whom he’d promised _Forever yours_ in return.

The next morning, he emerged from his bedroom clad in Reaper’s armor rather than the casual clothes he’d been indulging in, irritated by the way he could _feel_ his hair against the hood and embracing it as an emotional crutch to keep him focused on things other than the hedonism he’d been wallowing in.

“I’ve been distracted,” he growled, “but Talon needs to go down and I can’t afford to be anything but Reaper until then.”

McCree looked unhappy, but Sombra nodded. “I may have a plan,” she declared crisply. “It all hinges on Akande Ogundimu.”

“Who was securely locked up in prison, last I checked,” Reaper said, arms crossed.

“True, but if he breaks out…”

He did some rapid mental calculations. Ogundimu’s aspirations and philosophies clashed amazingly with Vialli’s. There would be some fairly intense power struggles almost immediately. It could provide a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but they’d have to be ready for it.

“Keep me informed,” he instructed. “I’ll suggest to Vialli that he might want to _loan_ his best weapons to Ogundimu for information-gathering purposes. I have no qualms about being a double agent there, and I assume you don’t, either.”

Sombra grinned at him. “No objections here…Boss.”

Reaper rubbed his clawed hands together. “Good.”


	12. Planning for the future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sombra takes in an art show with Angela, Jesse has dinner with Ana, and Akande starts putting his own plans into motion.

“Bye, Dad! We’re leaving for our date!”

“Have fun,” Reaper called back without looking up from his reports.

Jesse grinned. “Oh, we’re going to. See, there’s this art show, and then-”

Reaper held one hand up. “Stop. I don’t need to know. I don’t _want_ to know. In fact, I explicitly forbid you from telling me what it is you two are going to do on this date of yours. Understood?”

“Loud ‘n clear,” Jesse said smugly. “Enjoy your alone time while we’re gone.”

Sombra laughed as Reaper gave them what was unmistakably a glare behind the mask, and they fled the suite. As usual, they didn’t talk until they were well away from the base and Sombra had disabled monitoring on the vehicle.

“You’re _sure_ she’s gonna be there,” Jesse half-asked.

“Hotel security had them both check in last night. She left the room, but he didn’t.”

“Alright,” he conceded. “Just don’t want this to get awkward, either by being stood up or by having an extra guest. And you’re good for your art show?”

She nodded. “She’ll be there. You’re pretty calm about lying to Papi.”

Jesse snorted. “It ain’t a lie; it just ain’t the full truth, either. Where d’you think I learned it? We did a _lot_ of sketchy stuff in Blackwatch, and listening to Dad rephrase things for mission reports was always my favorite part of any mission.” He grinned sideways at her. “I’m not ruining any childhood fantasies, am I?”

“No.” She flicked at his ear but deliberately missed. “I’m just not used to being around people as devious as I am.”

They laughed together, and the silence settled comfortably around them for a few minutes.

“Jesse?”

“Yes, darling?”

Sombra stretched her fingers out, seemingly engrossed by the sight. “You still want to be with me even if I can never go back?”

He reached out and took one of her hands in his. “I was ready to be with you when I thought there’d never be anything physical between us. If _you_ still want to be with _me_ as I grow into a wrinkly, sagging, bald old man, then I sure as _hell_ want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

She squeezed his hand in wordless thanks.

“Of course,” he said lightly, “that don’t mean I’m not crossing my fingers for your meeting. I just want you to be able to taste Dad’s tequila-lime pulled chicken.”

Sombra chuckled. “Not gonna lie, that was a big part of my decision.” She shot him a smoldering glance. “The six-shooter you keep holstered in your pants is the other big part,” she said suggestively.

“You want to take this Bronco for a ride,” he teased, grinning, “you’re gonna have to wait for our _other_ dates to end and our _real_ date to start.”

“Some things are _worth_ waiting for,” she purred.

Jesse’s cheeks turned slowly red.

* * *

The art gallery was showing a collection of works questioning the line between man and machine and suggesting that humans and omnics weren’t so different after all. It was the sort of show where a girl with cranial augmentations could conceivably rub shoulders with a doctor who’d pushed cybernetics further than anyone else in the name of saving a life.

Naturally, that’s where Sombra had arranged to meet with Angela Ziegler.

Sombra got there first, by design: the plan was for them to slowly and _coincidentally_ converge in the back corner, but she actually wanted to take her time appreciating the pieces so she was there an hour early. Besides, that gave her time to subtly check out the security system and make sure she had a sample of quiet background sounds to loop in so that their conversation wouldn’t be recorded.

The hour melted away delightfully, and as she approached the back corner, Angela entered the gallery. While Sombra drifted naturally from piece to piece the same as she’d been doing, Angela zigzagged her way from the front room to the back as though only certain pieces had caught her attention, and they wound up staring at a painting of a heavily-augmented man whose cybernetics were still operational (the artist had spliced tiny LEDs into the canvas; it was very effective) but whose biological components had died and rotted away, leaving his half-metal cadaver to regard its skeletal hands with artificial eyes. The unsettling but sobering implication was that even though his organic body had died, his mind lived on in his augmentations.

Sombra disabled the audio in their corner and inserted the quiet loop.

“You wanted to talk,” Angela stated in an indirect question, hands behind her back, not looking anywhere but the painting. “This couldn’t have been done at my home?”

“Jesse is meeting Ana for lunch. Didn’t want to risk Jack stopping by.”

Angela straightened a little. “Good reason. What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“The possibility of me going back,” Sombra said quietly.

“Back…you want to become organic again.”

“Maybe. Some day. Jesse and I are more serious than I ever thought I’d be with anyone.”

The doctor thought about it for a minute. “You are coming to me because you would need to _construct_ an organic body. I assume things have gone well with Gabriel?”

“He’s been organic for a week and a half. Everything functions normally. He even has appropriate gut flora.”

A small gasp. “You were able to program…?”

“Not me. The swarm needs raw materials to build what it’s been programmed to build, and apparently it just took the bacteria whole from his…donor.”

Angela shuddered.

“I’ve got the full set of his current programming and I saved my DNA sequence when I deleted myself,” Sombra said crisply. “My problem is that in order to do for myself what we did for him, I’d need to have a nanite swarm of my own and I don’t know how to get my body to host one without it just eating me.”

“Quite a puzzle indeed,” murmured Angela. “I will give the issue some thought and begin experimenting with unused prosthetics.”

“There’s something else,” Sombra said when it looked like the doctor would turn and leave. “He’s ready to leave. We’re trying to work something out, and if we’re successful, it will probably go down within the next two weeks.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Angela’s jaw clench.

“I will do my best to ensure I can help at a moment’s notice if I am needed,” she promised.

“Thank you,” Sombra said quietly.

The doctor moved on to admire a sculpture. Sombra ended the loop and took a handful of steps to the side so that she could contemplate the next painting. It was five minutes before Angela had zigzagged her way back out of the gallery, but another half hour before Sombra was done.

As she left, she wired fifty thousand siphoned from an anti-omnic hate group to the gallery’s donation page.

* * *

“Morricone,” Jesse told the hostess. “Party of two, but I’m waiting on my aunt.”

The hostess checked her list. “We have your reservation, and your table is ready whenever your aunt arrives,” she informed him cheerfully. “You can wait at the bar, if you’d like.”

“Nah. I want to make sure she knows I’m here.”

Jesse sauntered over to the waiting area and sat on a couch where he would be easily visible from the windows beside the door. As he suspected, she must have had the restaurant under surveillance, because less than a minute later an older woman in a blue hijab approached and he leaped up to hold the door for her. Her face was more weathered, her hair whiter and of course there was the eye patch, but it was definitely Ana Amari and his hug was tight and warm. They followed a waiter to a booth in the back, placed drink orders – water with lemon and hot tea – and pretended to peruse the menus until he was out of hearing range.

“You look damn good for a dead woman,” Jesse teased softly. “Sorry I missed you in Cairo.”

“I was not expecting to run into your father,” she replied carefully. _“Or_ his husband.”

“How is he, by the way?”

Ana sighed. “Sleeping poorly and self-medicating with more hard liquor than I am happy about. After their last encounter, he confessed to me what he said to your father that resulted in his suicide attempt.”

Jesse’s eyebrows went up. “I’d like to hear that. I never asked Dad, but I know it had to have been…”

He broke off as the waiter returned with their drinks; they ordered after a hasty glance at the menus and waited for him to retreat again.

“He declared _the man I married is dead_ and threw his ring at your father,” Ana said in clear disapproval.

“Shit. No _wonder_ Dad reacted like that.”

“Jesse…” Ana took his hands in hers. “He is adamant that your father does not intend to kill him, but your father still beat him very badly. Please. How does he really feel?”

“The first time he showed up,” the cowboy started slowly, “Dad asked me to break him out once he’d worked him over. He gave orders that no one is to hurt him, just bring him in for Dad, and…Ana, we fixed Dad. He’s back to his old self, physically. But he won’t use his name because there’s too much emotional crap attached to it. I think…” Jesse took a deep breath and squeezed her hands reassuringly. “I think he wants to make up with his husband, but he was hurt _really_ bad.”

“Luckily,” she said dryly, “His husband wants very much to make up with _him_. You said he’s back to his old self?”

Jesse reclaimed his hands and nodded. “Fit as a fiddle. We’re working on a way to get him out of there. Hopefully won’t take longer than two weeks.”

“We’ll stay in the area, then,” Ana said.

“I take it you’ve been avoiding running into Dad?”

She smiled wryly at him. “It seemed prudent.”

“Can’t deny that,” he chuckled. “So, uh, now that the family drama is taken care of…”

“We can catch up. How have you been, Jesse?”

Heat stole up his cheeks. “I met a girl. We’re…kinda serious. I think she’s the one.”

Ana fixed him with a stern look. “If you do not have a wedding to invite me to, I will be _deeply_ disappointed.”

“Still working things out,” he protested. “It’s…complicated. But whatever we end up having, I want you there.”

“Good.” The stern look faded into a wicked grin. “I still haven’t forgiven your father for getting married in private, in _Las Vegas,_ in an Overwatch-themed wedding chapel.”

Jesse drew himself up indignantly. “Well, we _certainly_ won’t be doing _that_.”

Ana laughed.

* * *

A couple of hours after McCree and Sombra left, Reaper got an urgent message from Vialli. Ogundimu was breaking out _tonight_ and wanted Reaper to be there to pick him up. Reaper assured Vialli that he would be respectful and discreet, scrawled a note for his son and effective daughter-in-law, and left for the hangar.

The flight there was simultaneously boring and tense in a familiar way: nothing to pass the time except thinking, and nothing to distract him from thinking about the mission. Dispatching the guards once he arrived was barely a break in the monotony. Waiting for Ogundimu to actually make his appearance added annoyance to the mix, and when the man finally approached, Reaper couldn’t resist a dry, “You’re late.”

“I was delayed,” Ogundimu said shortly as he stalked aboard. “Let’s get going.” Then, in what was clearly a test, “Tell me about the Russian mission.”

Reaper complied, subtly sneering at Vialli and hinting that he and Sombra were champing at the bit to follow someone with more _vision_. He kept his voice steady as he informed the bigger man that Talon’s prize trophy, the assassin they’d broken Amélie Lacroix into, had been the one to take out Mondatta and cause London to turn into a powder keg almost as volatile as the Uprising.

_“That_ was a missed opportunity,” Ogundimu said darkly as they flew through the night. “But who would have thought Overwatch would get involved?”

_See,_ Reaper thought at the memory of his ex-husband. _See, I was right!_

Not that it mattered much in the long run. And he didn’t want to think about Morrison right now. Or at all.

“Speaking of which,” he growled, “I retrieved part of the Overwatch database. I’ve already taken a few names off the list.” There; that sounded nice and ominous and not at all like him deliberately deleting entries before he’d handed it over.

Ogundimu gave him a quick, sharp look like a poisoned dart. “Morrison and Amari?” he asked, voice just a hair too controlled.

“No, not yet.” Reaper was pleased that his growl remained even despite the adrenaline spike those two names had caused. How had he known they were alive? It _had_ to be Hakim, that worm. But then…if he knew…did he also know who he was speaking to?

“I hope you’re not feeling sentimental.” The words held a subtle edge.

He knew. _Fuck_. How had he figured it out? Had hakim’s bugs picked up Ana saying his name? Worry about it later; for now, play it cool. Like Klingon revenge: best served cold.

“No,” he said darkly.

Apparently he’d convinced Ogundimu – either that or he just didn’t rank high enough on the man’s priorities – because he changed the subject. He wanted to talk with Maximilien, to get the lay of the land and some new clothes, and he wanted Amélie and Sombra to accompany him.

Behind the mask, Reaper smiled. So far, this was going exactly as he and Sombra had anticipated, and when he assured Ogundimu that he and the hacker would be more than happy to assist him, his fervor was genuine. Between that and the edge in his voice when Overwatch was mentioned, apparently Ogundimu came to the conclusion that he’d chafed at Morrison’s peace-loving ways because he started outlining his plan to oust Vialli when the Talon heads met in Venice.

“Can I count on you?” he asked, staring into Reaper’s mask, his words as hard and heavy and relentless as his fist.

“I’ll be there even if it kills me,” Reaper promised.

Ogundimu’s smile was sharp and more than a little cruel. “Good.”


	13. Retribution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. Vialli wasn’t paying close enough attention, and Reaper’s going to make sure Talon suffers for it.

“McCree!” Reaper shouted, not looking up from his desk.

From the cowboy’s room, a voice floated back. “What?”

Well, he wasn’t going to just _shout_ the mission details. “Get out here!”

“I’m a bit tied up right now, Dad. Can it wait?”

“No! You have a mission! Both of you!”

“Okay, fine! …Sombra, could you untie me?”

Reaper covered his mask with both gauntlets and drew a deep breath, almost absently composing a brief prayer for patience. He knew _exactly_ what he’d just interrupted, and wished he didn’t. The silver lining was that Sombra was proving to be a daughter-in-law he could genuinely be proud of – she knew what she wanted and she didn’t let anything stop her.

Learning that his son enjoyed having her do…things…with rope, however, was something he could have lived without.

They strolled out two minutes later, and Reaper gave them the details. Looked like a simple digital smash-and-grab, but any mission that involved Sombra leaving the base required her to be escorted by either himself or McCree, and he had his regular meeting with Vialli and Someone Else in a few minutes.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” McCree said as they both hugged him. “We should be back in plenty of time for dinner.”

“You better,” he growled. Since Sombra had fully restored his body, he had to actively _remember_ to growl, and more than two weeks later it still didn’t sound quite the same. “You two still need to finish packing for Venice.”

Because, of course, they wouldn’t be coming back.

“You worry too much, Papi,” the hacker teased.

“Hmph. _Someone_ has to. Now go, you have a mission and I have a meeting.”

They hugged him again and went. Reaper sighed, stretched, and dissolved to ride the air vents to the meeting room.

* * *

Maximilien was on the other screen today, but the omnic was being quiet. By contrast, Vialli just would not _shut up,_ rambling incessantly on inane tangents and covering the same material three or four times. It was understandable that with the meeting in Venice only two days away – and Ogundimu making waves since before he even left prison – Vialli would be a bit on edge. Particularly since Ogundimu had followed through on his plan and demanded Sombra accompany him on his visit to Monaco, with Widowmaker for her backup. Two valuable tools, two trophies, neither one resilient or expendable like Reaper and McCree were, respectively. He was pushing boundaries, pushing Vialli’s buttons, and everyone knew it was the precursor to a coup. It was bound to make Vialli nervous.

He’d be more nervous if he knew the preparations Reaper had been making.

And yet…

Behind his mask, Reaper’s eyes narrowed. Vialli didn’t seem _afraid_. It was more like he was stalling, but why?

Before he could think of a way to ask, the screens glitched and Vialli’s went dark.

“Reaper?” Maximilien said cautiously.

“I’m here,” he growled.

The omnic’s cranial lights glowed in the darkness. “We don’t have much time before the glitch caused by my interference is sorted out. You must leave immediately.”

A thrill of alarm raced up Reaper’s spine. “Why?”

“I have received word from Sombra. The mission was a set-up. Vialli knows who you are, and he has just tried to kill your son.”

Black smoke exploded from his shoulders and back, protective rage making his blood boil. “Thanks for the tip. If I don’t see Vialli in Venice,” he snarled, “then I’ll see him _in hell_.”

The omnic tilted his head in an amused way. “Good hunting, Commander Reyes.”

The screen went dark, and Reaper dissolved completely.

First, he flashed through the air vents to his quarters. The fact that Maximilien knew who he was – who he _had been_ – was of no concern at the moment. Sombra was clearly allied with Maximilien and _she_ knew who he used to be, so naturally she would have told her ally. Reaper allotted two minutes to shoving clothes and personal effects into the bag his son and their hacker had started, and then he grabbed the one he’d packed for himself. With both bags slung over one shoulder he stalked through the halls shooting anyone who tried to stop him. By the time he reached the hangar, word had spread and the only sounds were the echoes of distant feet running for cover.

He took the fastest craft in the hangar and sped towards the mission coordinates.

* * *

The number of bloody bodies scattered around outside the building was reassuring, but Reaper kept both shotguns out anyway as he searched the place. He found more dead bodies inside, these in Talon gear, and a trail of smeared blood that led into the men’s bathroom.

At the last second, he reconsidered inviting potential gunfire by opening the door, and misted under it instead.

On the other side, he saw familiar booted legs spilling out from one stall. The faint sound of damaged electronics echoed off the tiles.

“Papi?”

Sombra’s voice was quiet, tense, and not reassuring in the slightest.

“Si, Sombra.”

“He’s alive,” she said in a rush as he cautiously approached the stall to peer inside. His cowboy son was unconscious, blood soaking his clothing in multiple places. “My legs are damaged. He dragged me in here. I-”

 “You’re both coming with me.” Carefully, he lifted McCree and draped one arm over his shoulder before grabbing Sombra’s outstretched hand and hauling her up, as well. It looked like she’d taken several shots between hips and knees, synthskin scorched and peeled back to expose damaged mechanisms, and the sparks bleeding from the gunshot wounds tickled against his armor. “Hold on.”

Translocation wasn’t the easiest ability to use, but Jesse needed help _fast_ and running would only jostle his wounds _._ It took five jumps before they were on the ship. He laid his son on the floor and sat Sombra in the pilot’s seat, where she caressed the controls and enslaved them.

“Where to?” she asked as the door closed and the engines prepared for takeoff.

Reaper ripped the first aid kit off the wall and opened it up. “The last place anyone would expect us to go,” he said grimly. “Watchpoint Gibraltar.”

* * *

McCree would live, but recovery wouldn’t be fun. He’d lost a lot of blood. The armor had done its job protecting his vitals, at least, and the bandages from the first aid kit would hold things until they got to a medical facility…which shouldn’t be long, with how close they were to the Watchpoint. Reaper directed Sombra towards the best place to land as they came in, and had her set the little ship down as close to the door as possible.

With McCree’s unconscious body cradled in his arms and Sombra clinging to his shoulders, he wouldn’t be making any kind of stealthy entry – but that wasn’t his intent. The ringing of his boots against the steps echoed boldly, and in the distance he could hear a proximity alarm go off.

“Athena!” he bellowed. “I’m not a hostile and I’m carrying wounded! Tell your creator to chill out!”

A startled exclamation and rhythmic thudding; that would be Winston running towards the entryway, no doubt. Sure enough, as he strode into the command center, the gorilla landed in front of him and pulled up short in surprise.

“Reaper! You think you can-”

“Don’t _even_ start with me, monkey!” Reaper snapped in a commanding shout. “My daughter-in-law needs help! And while you’re at it, call Ziegler for my son. Who else do you have contact information for? Call them all. I want Talon to be a smoking crater as of _yesterday._ ”

Winston seemed stunned as Reaper laid McCree on a table, then unhooked Sombra and laid her beside him. Only then did the gorilla shake himself out of it and move over to the hacker. “Uh…of course. Athena?”

_“I have already sent an urgent message to Dr. Ziegler,”_ the AI said pleasantly. _“Contacting all Overwatch agents now.”_

The gorilla looked up from examining Sombra’s legs and fixed Reaper with a remarkably threatening glare. “I _hope_ you have a _plan,_ ” he said in a sharply accusing tone.

“Of _course_ I have a plan. It will be like shooting fish in a barrel. I could do it by myself if I had to, but I thought Overwatch might like to be part of taking down the organization that took down _them_.”

“That’s…quite a change of heart from last time,” Winston said warily.

Reaper snorted. “Last time? You mean when I let you kick my ass while the program I had Sombra sabotage skimmed a quarter of your information and then twiddled its digital thumbs?”

“Now that you mention it…” Winston mumbled, turning away in a gesture of embarrassment. “Uh…Sombra?”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s my name.”

“Do you have…schematics?”

“Of course,” she huffed. One hand gestured, and a screen opened.

Reaper watched for a moment, then said, “I’m going to see what you’ve done to the med bay before I transfer my son there.”

A distracted mumble and a nod; good enough. He dissolved and flowed out of the room.

* * *

The med bay was still in decent condition; Reaper prepared a table and assembled the things he thought Ziegler might need. Winston and Sombra barely noticed him returning or carrying McCree off.

_“I have received confirmation of Dr. Ziegler’s ETA,”_ Athena said as he laid McCree on the medical table. _“It will be nearly an hour before she arrives, and the Overwatch agents who have replied affirmatively will begin arriving shortly after.”_

“Thanks,” he said shortly. “I’m going to do what I can here and then draw up a battle plan – assuming you haven’t locked me out of the system.”

_“Commander Reyes.”_ He swore she sounded almost offended. _“Your authorization remains valid.”_

The thought of his old friends hearing that name…seeing the distinctive armor, and wondering…

Reaper cringed behind his mask. “Please don’t call me that. Just ‘Reaper’. I don’t want to open that can of worms until after the mission.”

_“I understand.”_

He wondered if she really did, but it was the least of his concerns right now. As gently as he could, he stripped McCree and piled everything out of the way. A painkiller, a saline drip, and a sheet were about all he could do without taking the bandages off.

“Athena?”

_“Yes, Reaper?”_

“If he wakes up, let him know that he’s safe, Sombra’s safe, I’m safe, and Ziegler’s on her way?”

_“Of course.”_

“Thanks.” He stretched, feeling three vertebrae pop in his back. “Actually, I’m going to move the ship and bring our bags in before I get started on the battle plan. Don’t want to be the asshole who parks in front of the door.”

It didn’t take long to move the little ship out of the way, and he left the bags in a corner of the command room. Sombra seemed to be actively involved in her own repairs, controlling some sort of drone to aid Winston while also making a list of replacement parts they’d need. At least the damaged portions of her legs had stopped sparking. Reaper settled in front of an unused terminal half-hidden behind a pile of equipment and started drawing up the plans they’d made for the Talon meeting in Venice. He’d alter them according to who showed up to help, but the core remained simple. And, as he’d told Winston, he’d do it all by himself if he had to.

Angela Ziegler arrived as he was finishing, and he stayed out of sight while she greeted Winston briefly on her way to the med bay. On the one hand, he wanted to follow her and make sure his cowboy son was okay. On the other hand, he thought, how do you meet the eyes of the woman in whose bathroom you tried – and failed – to kill yourself? He busied himself with transferring everything on his pad to the Watchpoint servers, then adding everything he remembered. Base locations, passwords, personnel and equipment, all the things he’d managed as head of Blackwatch and taken up the reins of keeping track of at Talon for the purpose of efficiently organizing missions.

It was the gentle thump of a mug being set next to him that brought him out of the world of lists and numbers. Startled, he looked up – straight into Angela’s tired and concerned face.

“Jesse McCree is recovering,” she said gently. “Sombra is with him in one of the agents’ quarters. Half a dozen Overwatch agents have arrived already, with a dozen more on their way. I get the feeling you would forget to eat anytime soon if left to your own devices, so…”

She gestured at the mug. He recognized the contents from their scent: a broth packed with as much powdered protein and nutrients as it would hold and still be a liquid, the sort of thing that could keep a man going for days in the field and had a shelf life of approximately forever. There was a bendy straw stuck in the liquid so that he wouldn’t have to remove his mask to drink it.

The stripes on the straw were red. He didn’t know if that was coincidence or a subtle hint that she knew who he was.

“Thanks,” he growled shortly, picking up the mug and sipping to excuse himself from any further conversation.

She moved on, distributing hot (if shelf-stable) food to the cluster of men and women chatting with Winston. None of them seemed to have noticed him, and he was content to keep it that way until the other dozen had arrived. He went back to spilling Talon’s secrets into the Watchpoint servers, sipping his dinner absently.

It was Reinhardt bellowing Winston’s name that startled him out of his own thoughts again, and he looked up to see that not only had he dragged one of Torbjörn’s kids with him – in armor, no less – but Ana was being hugged by Ziegler, Morrison was being mobbed by agents who’d thought he was dead, and was that _Genji?_

For a long moment, Reaper regretted inviting all and sundry to this party.

“You’re, uh, probably wondering why we called you here,” Winston said as the greetings wound down. “We, uh, provided sanctuary to a few ex-Talon agents who were betrayed and came here seeking sanctuary.”

That was remarkably sympathetic. No doubt Sombra had talked with him about more than just her ruined legs.

“One of them has a plan to take down the organization. He says he could do it by himself, but he wanted to, uh, give Overwatch a shot at revenge. If you recognize him – you’ll probably recognize him, just don’t…uh…cause a scene? Please? I have reason to believe he is genuine in his desire to destroy Talon.” After a collective murmur of agreement, Winston drew a deep breath. “Okay. Reaper? The floor is yours.”

As unhappy mutters and startled gasps rippled up from the group, he dissolved and swirled over to the big display, not-so-coincidentally keeping him at a healthy distance from the people who might recognize him and deliberately _not_ looking at Morrison or Amari. The display linked to the terminal he’d been at, and he pulled up maps of the Venice location.

“We have a rare opportunity,” he growled. “All the heads of Talon are going to be in one place. I can break in and kill them all myself if I have to…” He glanced at the assembled agents and grinned behind his mask. “…but I don’t think I’ll be alone. Akande Ogundimu plans to move against at least one other head. I was supposed to accompany him. His intended victim is the one who turned on me, so I doubt word of my disappearance has reached him. But just in case, here’s the layout of the area. Security is supposed to be here, here…”

Reaper went through every detail of the plan, including what his costume looked like and where Widowmaker was going to be. He saw Amari and Ziegler put their heads together and silently wished them luck in whatever they were plotting.

“I know you probably don’t trust my information completely,” he growled at the end of the presentation, “so I won’t tell you what to do. The information is yours and I’ll leave in the morning so you can work out whatever plan you want. My only suggestion is that you leave Maximilien alone or capture him alive; I have reason to believe he’s secretly working against Talon, and his warning is the only reason my agents survived the mission that was supposed to kill them.”

With that, he dissolved into smoke and fled the room before anyone could ask questions that would be uncomfortable for everyone.


	14. Masquerade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn’t going to go well for Talon. Moira would offer insincere sympathies, but she’s too busy moving to Brazil because unlike Vialli, she knows this particular history lesson and she’s staying so far away from Venice that she doesn’t even appear in the chapter.

Predictably, once Reaper left the room it erupted into chaos. Everyone had an opinion or a theory, and they were determined to share it. Should they trust him, was it a trap, did he have an ulterior motive. Arguments and counter-arguments. Around and around until Jack was ready to put his visor back on and storm Talon by himself – or at least, storm out of the room. He wanted to get Ana alone and talk to her, see what she thought Gabriel was up to. He wanted to drag Angela out into the hall and ask what the hell had happened to Jesse.

He wanted to find his husband and hold him, reassure him that everything would be okay.

“You have been very quiet.” Reinhardt’s hand on Jack’s shoulder brought him back into the present. “Do you have any thoughts on Reaper’s defection that you wish to share?”

_Not really,_ he thought. Out loud, he said, “Only that I believe he genuinely wants to take Talon down.”

The big Crusader gave him a sympathetic look. “I know it must be hard on you, carrying on the fight without Gabriel-”

Jack stood abruptly and stalked off, heading outside. He didn’t want to hear sympathy for Gabriel’s assumed death, but he didn’t want to explain how he knew that his husband was alive, either. The night was cool and clear, exactly the sort that would have seen him and Gabe leaning against a wall, fingers tangling together as they gazed up at the stars. He missed that, missed _them_ with a sudden intensity that made his chest ache.

Footsteps approaching turned out to be Angela.

“Jesse McCree is resting comfortably,” she said, making some of the tension bleed out of him. “He sustained several gunshot wounds, but nothing vital was hit and Gabriel was able to perform first aid quickly enough to keep him from bleeding out.”

Jack sighed. “So you know, then.”

She lifted her chin slightly. “I was contacted by the hacker, Sombra, who sought my help in restoring Gabriel’s body. Jesse vouched for her, and between the two of us, we have been successful. Although he is still in a symbiotic relationship with his nanite swarm, Sombra has assured me that he can eat, sleep, and in all other ways function normally again.”

“In other words, you’ve done your part to fix him, and now it’s up to me to do mine.”

Angela tilted her head slightly. “Well…perhaps that can wait until after the mission. Are you going?”

“I thought he was dead,” Jack said, his voice a quiet rumble. “I have a second chance, a chance to stand by Gabe and prove that I have his back. That I trust him. I’m not going to waste it.”

“Then you should get some rest,” Angela pointed out gently. “Gabriel intends to leave very early in the morning.”

“And _someone_ has to organize the mission. Fine, I’ll go to bed.”

Jack started to turn away, but stopped and hugged the surprised doctor instead.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

Angela hugged him back. “You are very welcome.”

* * *

True to his word, Reaper was gone before anyone woke up the next morning. Jack went to the kitchen for coffee, only to discover that he was not the first to rise because Ana was there making tea.

“Angela says he’s…physically recovered,” Jack said quietly as he searched for a mug. “I’m going to talk to him after the mission.”

“Have you thought about what you are going to say?” she asked, eyebrow raised.

He grimaced. “Haven’t got a damn clue past _I’m sorry_ being somewhere in there, and possibly _I was an idiot_ and _you were right_.”

“All good choices.” She smiled at him, light and teasing. “I am certain you will do just fine.”

Jack grimaced again, remembering the beatings he’d suffered at his husband’s hands. “Well, that makes one of us.”

“Worried about the mission?” a chirpy voice asked from the doorway. Oxton, of course. “Reaper left a costume behind – the one his injured hacker was going to wear. I think I could fit into it.”

The coffee maker beeped; Jack poured his mug, then poured one for Oxton and offered it to her. “Worried more about _after_ the mission,” he admitted.

Oxton took the mug and stared into it. “Commander-”

“Just _Jack._ ”

“Jack…did Reaper seem…familiar to you?”

He sighed. “That’s the after-mission thing I’m worried about.”

“Oh.” Oxton’s cheeks flushed while Ana tied not to laugh. “I’ll…just…check that costume.”

She retreated from the kitchen, mug abandoned on the counter, while Ana patted his shoulder.

“Unless you plan on following Gabriel’s example,” she said, warm amusement infusing every word, “I suggest you embrace your rank.”

Jack leaned against the counter and took a long sip of his coffee. “Fine,” he sighed. “I’ll organize the mission.”

* * *

Winston excused himself from the mission planning; aside from the fact that it was much harder to disguise his involvement, _someone_ had to stay behind to ensure the base remained secure and watch the two injured Talon agents, and there was every reason for that someone to be him. In the end, the planning was depressingly easy. Gabriel had done all the hard work for him, and he was right – all the people they had were overkill. But they had a chance to get Amélie back, and that justified the purely selfish desire to get involved solely for the opportunity to kick Talon in the balls. They planned, they rested, they raided the Watchpoint armory for firearms and light armor. They ate a hearty meal cobbled together out of rations and finally, piled into Angela’s little medical ship and a hijacked Talon dropship for the trip to Venice.

No one asked about the injured Talon agents. No one discussed whether or not Reaper’s growl had sounded the slightest bit familiar.

Oxton did fit into the costume Reaper had left, _with_ room for her chronal harness, which meant she would be disabling security and making an easy mission even easier. She left the dropship first, zipping off to where Reaper had told them the security office was. Once her part was accomplished, she’d return to the ships and wait with Genji, who had calmly informed Jack that he would watch over the vehicles rather than play a more active role.

“I am too distinctive, even in a costume,” he’d said. “I will remain here, and ensure that your means of escape is not compromised. Should Talon come for their vessel, I will be more than capable of making them reconsider the idea.”

No one could really argue with that.

The rest of them knocked out revelers and stole their costumes, hiding themselves under masks and voluminous cloaks, leaving their unconscious victims in an alley. Ana and Angela vanished to find and retrieve Amélie, while the rest of them spread out to make their inconspicuous way towards their final goal.

Once, Jack thought he saw Reaper in the distance. Someone wearing all red, a figure the color of fresh blood moving through the crowds like a shark gliding through the shallows. But he didn’t stop to check.

They had a mission.

Getting inside was easy. Between Oxton having disabled security and the dead guards – bodies still warm – littering the hall, it was simple to cross the causeway and enter what should have been a heavily-fortified building. Instead, there was no one to even hear the echoes of their footsteps as they walked down a wide hall, passing statues of kings and emperors, and clustered on the other side of the tall wooden double doors at the end.

This was it. The heads of Talon were behind those doors. And so was his husband, who may or may not hate him.

_I don’t know exactly how the room will be arranged,_ Reaper had said. _Don’t hesitate to shoot everyone who moves, including me. I don’t die. Don’t let any of them escape because you’re trying to not hit me._

Jack nodded to Reinhardt. Reinhardt nodded back. The other dozen agents and Brigitte – who had smuggled her shield in somehow – melted back against the walls as the two big men backed up twenty feet.

“Three,” Jack said in a low voice. “Two. One.”

They charged the doors, human battering rams hurling all their weight against the wooden obstacles. The doors didn’t stand a chance. They exploded inwards, splinters flying, glass shattering, boards clattering to the stone floor while the other agents, as though pulled by their wake, flowed neatly into the room and spread out. There was a moment of shocked silence, and then Jack drew the firearm he’d taken from the armory and shot the red-swathed man in the back.

His second shot took Akande Ogundimu in between the eyes.

It was hard to tell what happened after that. The Overwatch agents gunned down everyone but the omnic sitting at one end of the oval table while Brigitte and Reinhardt blocked the doorway with their bodies. Some of the Talon heads tried to run or reach for weapons, but they were outnumbered and outgunned and they never even got a shot off. Some didn’t even make it out of their chairs.

Once the echoes faded, Reaper growled, “If I move, is someone going to shoot me?”

Jack holstered his weapon. “No.”

The red-swathed figure that had been slumped face-down on the table stood up and turned to reveal a very realistic human skull mask instead of the stylized owl skull Jack had been expecting. “Good. Then it’s time for us to get out of here. Leave this mess for the Italian government to deal with. Maximilien?”

The omnic stood and straightened his suit. “I have my own transport waiting, thank you. I’ll be in touch.”

Reaper nodded to him as he slipped out a door in the back of the room, then turned back to the rest of them. “I’ll see you back at the Watchpoint.”

Jack almost called his name as he walked through them, agents parting like fish before a shark, Reinhardt and Brigitte stepping aside to let him pass, everyone’s expressions unreadable behind their masks. No one moved except to watch him walk down that hallway. Once he was out of sight, Jack nodded.

“Alright. Let’s move out.”

* * *

The dropship was untouched, Angela’s smaller craft already gone. Genji relayed that they had been successful in retrieving Amélie, but they would not be returning to the Watchpoint. They would see Oxton on her way back to London before bringing Amélie to Dr. Ziegler’s best medical facility, with Captain Amari accompanying them – both in case Amélie needed to be incapacitated, and because if retro-conditioning was successful, she would need a friend nearby to help her cope with the things that had been done to – and with – her body.

Although the flight back started off quiet, with everyone stripping stolen costumes and masks off, conversations soon sprang up regarding Reaper. No one wanted to come out and say who they suspected he was, and Genji refused to even speculate. Finally, Jack spoke up.

“When we get back to the Watchpoint, I’ll go talk to him. _And_ the wounded Talon agents. The rest of you can tell Winston and Athena all about what happened, just let me talk to Reaper in private.”

That settled the speculation, but it gave him no room to chicken out. He still had no idea what to say to his husband, and Ana wasn’t there to ask.

Well, he _did_ say he’d talk to the ex-Talon agents. McCree had been friendly enough after his first brush with Reaper; maybe he’d have some advice.

They landed, the door opened, and all eyes turned to him. Didn’t want to risk running into Reaper, he guessed. No one stirred as he stood with a sigh and walked inside.

“Athena?” he called once he was out of earshot of the dropship. “Where is Jesse McCree?”

The AI informed him which room McCree was in, as well as where Reaper, Sombra, and Winston were – which turned out to be a repair station. Jack headed to the cowboy’s room.

“C’mon in,” Jesse drawled when Jack knocked on the door.

The man was laying in bed, propped up with half a dozen pillows. Standard-issue blankets covered him from the waist down, and bandages peeked out from under his half-buttoned flannel shirt in more than one place. An IV setup Jack had never seen before seemed to be converting some brackish fluid into blood, which dripped down the tube into his arm.

“I’m a mess, aren’t I?” Jesse asked wryly. “You shoulda seen the other guys.”

“I’m glad you’re okay.” Jack closed the door and sat in the chair beside the bed. “Gabe was…very worried about you.”

“Enough to call in the cavalry. Y’all kick Talon’s sandcastle over?”

He laughed briefly. “Something like that.”

“And now you’re off to talk to Dad, butcha don’t know what to say.” Jesse’s easy amusement was gone, replaced by something hard and wary.

Jack opened his mouth, but nothing came out so he closed it again.

“Angela said you tossed your cookies when you realized what Dad had done.”

Just remembering it was making guilt churn in his belly. “Yeah.”

“You want to make it right?”

He exhaled and braced himself. “Yes.”

For a long moment, Jesse weighed him with his eyes. Then he reached under his shirt and pulled out a gold chain with _something_ – Jack couldn’t see what it was through the other man’s fingers – strung on it. Jesse tugged the chain up over his head and just held it in his fist for a long moment before gesturing for Jack’s hand. He pressed the bundle into Jack’s palm and curled his fingers around whatever-it-was, all the while holding his eyes with a stare that was somehow vulnerable and threatening at the same time.

“Don’t fuck it up,” Jesse said solemnly. “Be honest. You owe him that much.”

Jack nodded and stumbled out of the room, not checking to see what, exactly, he’d been entrusted with until he was out in the hallway with the door closed behind him. With no small amount of trepidation, he uncurled his fingers – and then fisted his trembling hand tightly around its precious contents again.

Jesse had given him their wedding rings.


	15. Make it right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack finally has the chance to make it right. Things Gabe was not expecting: this.

As expected, Ogundimu had been so secure in himself that he’d taken Reaper following his plan as an unspoken oath of fealty, and the Masque of the Red Death reference had gone over his head entirely.

Truly, Reaper thought as he followed the man down the hall and into the meeting room, the very embodiment of hubris. The security systems had gone down according to plan, which meant _someone_ had paid attention to his little presentation, and that meant Talon was going to have company. The thought had him grinning as he sat in the closest chair, not caring that his back was to the door. Although he knew their owners would be dead soon enough, he couldn’t help studying the faces that stared at him with flickers of fear and uncertainty when they weren’t following Ogundimu’s path around the table.

Vialli wasn’t among them. That wasn’t entirely unexpected and a little gratifying; at least Ogundimu had been good for _something_.

Ogundimu sat in the only other chair that had no one to either side and set his hat-and-wig headpiece on the table. “We have a war to start,” he declared ominously.

Reaper rolled his eyes.

The resulting conversation and debate was every bit as pompous and annoying as he’d expected it would be, and he sat in utter silence until the door burst open. Ogundimu’s eyes bulged in outrage beyond measure that someone _dared_ interrupt him while he was in the middle of staging a coup, and Reaper was almost glad of the bullet that slammed him face-first into the table because it distracted him from the horrible temptation to _laugh his ass off_. A storm of gunfire followed, punctuated by wet sounds and aborted shouts, while the bullet wound healed itself and his swarm ate the bullet.

After silence fell, he counted to ten and said in a dry growl, “If I move, is someone going to shoot me?”

“No,” Morrison answered shortly.

Reaper stood and turned. Everyone was masked and draped in stylishly loose costume pieces, making it difficult to tell who was who. Well, except for Reinhardt. “Good,” he declared. “Then it’s time for us to get out of here. Leave this mess for the Italian government to deal with. Maximilien?”

“I have my own transport waiting, thank you. I’ll be in touch.” He sounded completely unruffled, as if the interruption had been a servant collecting coffee requests instead of armed invaders gunning everyone else down. Then again, he’d probably been expecting something like this to happen from the instant Vialli had made the mistake of trying to kill McCree.

Really, Reaper thought as he nodded to the omnic heading for a door in the back of the room, Vialli should have known better. After all, it’s not like Gabriel Reyes had never sought retribution when someone had attacked one of his friends. Then again, there was a reason for that saying about those who do not learn the lessons of history.

He turned back to the cluster of Overwatch agents once the door had closed behind Maximilien, but he really didn’t want to answer any questions they might ask. “I’ll see you back at the Watchpoint,” he said brusquely.

They parted before him, as though trying to avoid the Red Death he was dressed as, and in silence he strode back down that ostentatious hallway. Idly, he wondered how long it would take someone to find the scene of carnage he’d just left, and if he should send the Italian government an anonymous tip…or if someone in Overwatch would do that for him. He ripped the costume off bit by bit as he walked through the streets and let the torn pieces drop to the ground or flutter about in the night air. If someone saw Reaper in Venice, perhaps the government would start investigating.

No one stopped him on the way to his little ship.

Nothing interrupted his flight back to Watchpoint Gibraltar.

Athena greeted him on his arrival and informed him that McCree was resting comfortably in the same room Angela had put him in after tending his wounds. While he was gone, however, a number of parts for Sombra’s legs had arrived and she and Winston had been hard at work in the repair station for a couple of hours. Reaper made his way to the repair station and stood by the observation window. As anxious as he was to make sure his adopted daughter-in-law was repaired correctly, he knew damn well that inside that room, he would only be in the way. So he stood in the entryway, watching through the window, until a pair of footsteps approached and stopped just behind him.

“So…” The word was drawn out, trying to sound casual and failing horribly.

 _Morrison_. He wasn’t exactly the last thing Reaper wanted to deal with right now, but he was still on the list.

“I heard a rumor you actually have a soul,” Morrison continued in a pathetic attempt to tease him.

Oh, ha ha. Very funny. Mock the man who can’t die.

“Not now, Morrison,” he growled. “I have to make sure Winston doesn’t fuck up my daughter-in-law.”

“Daughter-in-law, hmm?” Morrison stepped closer, peering through the window as well. “Our boy finally settled down? Tell me about her.”

Reaper let the _our boy_ comment slide. “She goes by Sombra. She’s an orphan. I’m overlooking her questionable taste in men because she adopted me as a father-figure.”

Morrison made a thoughtful noise. “Think she could use a second father-figure?”

“What _exactly_ are you implying?” he demanded, hope and fear disguised as fury swirling uncomfortably in his chest.

Blue eyes, cold and hard, pinned him and stole his breath. “Take off your mask,” Morrison commanded, “and I’ll tell you.”

It was only fair, he thought numbly. He’d seen Morrison’s face. It’s not like Morrison didn’t know who he was, and he did actually _have_ a face again. Slowly, he reached up and undid the latches, trying to school his expression into something that wasn’t sheer nerves. With what he thought was a glare and a scowl firmly in place, he lowered the mask. His hood fell back, freeing the silver-streaked locks that now fell to his shoulders, and he held his breath while his heart hammered so loudly he was sure Morrison would hear it.

For a quiet eternity, he glared at Morrison while Morrison looked at him with frigid disdain that made his heart shrivel. Then Morrison’s lips were on his, warm and forgiving and inviting and he wanted that, he wanted to be Gabriel again, to have his husband back, to know that Jack _loved_ him and not have to feel the pain of knowing that his other half had…

Jack was kissing him, entreating wordlessly. Gabriel kissed back, knowing how badly it would hurt when this moment ended and he lost the love of his life all over again but unable to stop himself.

When they parted, it was swift and sudden. Jack stepped away as though he’d been burned, leaving Gabriel feeling lost and off-balance.

“We need to talk,” Jack blurted. “Privately. Just you and me.”

Well…yes. He supposed they did.

“Gabe…” Jack’s voice cracked, his eyes bleeding anguish. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I fucked up, and I hurt you, and I won’t ask you to forgive me because I don’t deserve it, I…”

The words trailed off, but Gabriel just felt…numb. This wasn’t happening, it _couldn’t_ be happening.

Jack’s fingers, warm on his cheek. “I’m sorry, Gabe. I’m camping in the commander’s quarters. I’ll be there when you’re ready to talk. If you _want_ to talk.”

Those warm lips brushed his again, and suddenly the emotions that had been dammed up broke free all at once and he found himself clinging to Jack, claws catching on the standard-issue armor he was wearing, cheek pressed against his cheek, eyes closed, breath shuddering in and out of his aching lungs.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” Jack’s voice was a soothing rumble. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

“Jack…” With how tight his throat felt, he was surprised he could even whisper. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“I deserved it, sweetheart.”

Gabriel’s hands tightened, pulling his Sunshine closer. “No. I don’t want you hurt.”

Gently but firmly, Jack pulled away until he could lay light kisses on every inch of Gabriel’s scarred face. “Come on, babe. Commander’s quarters. More comfortable than here. Don’t want anyone wandering by and seeing you, right?”

He’d forgotten that a dozen Overwatch agents, including some old friends, were also in the Watchpoint. _That_ snapped him out of his little breakdown.

“I’ll meet you there,” he promised, earning him a little smile from Jack.

Gabriel dissolved into smoke and flashed through the halls until he got to the commander’s quarters, the small suite he and Jack had used whenever one or both of them were here. His old code still worked; the door beeped and hissed open. The couch in the front room was littered with dirty clothes, and through the doorway he could see that the covers on the wide king-sized bed were tangled. Jack always _had_ been a restless sleeper if he didn’t have Gabriel to cling to; looked like at least _one_ thing that hadn’t changed.

Suddenly, he didn’t want to wear Reaper’s armor a second longer. Talon had fallen, and he didn’t have to play that role anymore. Gabriel dropped the mask onto the floor and tugged the gauntlets off, then tore at the fastenings with anxious fingers and practically ripped the rest of the armor off of his body. The under-armor followed, and clad only in a pair of red boxers he pulled the blanket off the bed to wrap himself in because he’d forgotten that the default temperature in the Watchpoints was about five degrees too cool for his comfort.

When the door beeped and hissed open for Jack, he discovered Gabriel blanket-cocooned in one corner of the couch and a tired smile faded across his lips.

“I’ll be right with you,” he promised, fingers working the fastenings of his borrowed armor.

Once he was down to sweatpants and a worn tee, he turned towards the couch again and approached warily, as if Gabriel were a wild animal that might bolt at any second instead of a blanket-wrapped tangle of hope and guilt and fear. For a moment, he looked like he was going to reach out and kiss Gabriel again, but instead he sat just far enough away to not be in his personal space.

“I didn’t mean it, that day,” Jack said heavily. He didn’t look at his husband, face averted as though silently screaming, _I don’t have the right_. “I was angry. I had just been attacked. I reacted badly. None of that excuses what I said or what I did. You were right; the governments _were_ strangling us and rogue elements _had_ infiltrated us. But I was right, too. We _couldn’t_ have done what you wanted and still kept the global goodwill that let us exist. It was a bad situation with no right answers, a game rigged against us, and if we could do it all over again I would have fought harder. Made a bigger stink. Twisted some arms. _Not_ broken the heart of the man I carried over the threshold in Vegas all those years ago.”

“Jack…”

It was everything he’d wanted to hear, but it didn’t make him feel _happy_. All it did was make the ache in his chest hurt a little less.

“I thought you were dead, Gabe.” Jack’s voice was a tired rumble. “I thought you’d died with my last words to you being _Get out._ Spent years trying to come to terms with my guilt and my grief. Then Talon got me, and I was ready to turn it all to hate and dump it on you. But you had multiple opportunities to kill me, and you didn’t. That made me think. After Cairo, Ana and I talked. We went to see Angela. To find answers.”

Jack shuddered, hands fisting and eyes tightly shut while he struggled to take broken breaths and Gabriel wrestled with the desires to both pull Jack close until his anguish faded, and to make Jack hurt for what he’d caused his husband to suffer.

“I never wanted to find that answer.” The words were choked out, and Gabriel could see a tear making its way down Jack’s cheek. “God, Gabe, I know there’s nothing I could say that would make up for what I did, and I don’t know if my love has any value anymore, but…”

He turned to face Gabriel, one hand tugging a gold chain from around his neck, tears streaking his face and blue eyes bleeding remorse. The hand he offered his husband held a chain that dripped between his fingers, two familiar but flame-stained rings strung on it.

“It’s still yours, Gabe,” he whispered. _“I’m_ still yours, if you want me. For whatever you want. We both promised, but I broke mine and I don’t know if I can ever make that right, but I want to try.”

He wanted… _god,_ he wanted to take Jack in his arms and kiss him, but he was still bleeding from being told _The man I married is dead._

Gabriel freed one hand from the blanket and reached for Jack’s, but he didn’t take the rings. He took Jack’s hand, held it, pressed the rings into their palms.

“I _did_ die with your last words to me being _Get out,_ ” he rasped. “I kept my promise. You said the man you married was dead, so I killed him. I woke up as a monster. I was in hell, Jack. Jesse was the only thing that kept me going. Do you know what it feels like to know that you _can’t die?_ I wanted to hurt you for how badly you hurt me. I wanted you to _suffer_. I wanted to _break_ you, to drag you down into hell with me.”

He paused, trembling with the force of the maelstrom swirling inside him, the tangle of hope/fear/guilt that knotted in his throat.

“I just want it to stop, Sunshine,” he whispered. “The pain you put me through. The guilt for hurting you. The fear that if I let myself hope, it will be dashed. That if I let myself feel…” He swallowed. “That if I let myself feel how much I still love you, you’ll break my heart again.”

“Gabe…”

“I took my ring off. If I wasn’t yours anymore, then I no longer had your love. But I couldn’t throw them away. Couldn’t throw _us_ away. I had them with me in the bath. How did _you_ get them?”

Jack gave him a lopsided grin. “Your son handed them to me when I said I wanted to fix things. Told me to not fuck it up.”

Jesse. Of course, he would have found them in the ashes and he must have kept them this whole time. Gabriel’s feelings for Jack were still tangled and confused, but he trusted his cowboy son and if his son believed in Jack….

“Make it right,” he said quietly, curling Jack’s fingers over the rings.

Slowly, eyes searching Gabriel’s face, Jack pulled his hand back and fumbled with the chain. He broke eye contact long enough to make sure he had the correct ring, and then he slid the one with the inscription _Forever yours – G. R._ onto his finger before laying the chain with other ring on it in Gabriel’s open palm.

“I never should have taken it off, Gabe. I’m sorry. And I understand if you’re not ready to wear-”

“Put it on me,” he interrupted quietly, holding out the chain with his ring dangling from it.

Jack took it with a searching look, but when Gabriel bowed his head, got the hint. He slipped it over his husband’s head and gently pulled his hair to one side, settling the warm metal against his neck.

“I need time to adjust,” Gabriel murmured, not meeting Jack’s eyes. “But I want to fix things, too.”

“Anything you need, sweetheart,” Jack murmured back.

“My bag,” Gabriel said dryly. “Athena can tell you what room I was using. I don’t want to put the armor back on to go get it, but I don’t want to walk around with my face showing either.”

Jack ducked his head to kiss his husband’s knuckles. “I’ll get it. I need to let everyone know that ‘Reaper’ isn’t an enemy, anyway. I won’t tell them who you are, though. That’s _your_ secret to reveal. When you’re ready for them to know, of course.”

“Thanks, Jack.” The smile Gabriel offered him was fragile hope and apology. “Okay if I spend the night on your couch?”

“You can spend the night wherever you want, babe.”

Gabriel watched as Jack left the room, one hand creeping up to finger the ring he’d worn for so long. He had his husband’s love again, and although he couldn’t bring himself to fully accept it, he wasn’t rejecting it either. For the moment, just _having_ it was enough.

He stretched out on the couch, still wrapped in the blanket, and waited with closed eyes for his Sunshine to return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amazing art by [Tsu★Star](http://tsu-star.tumblr.com/post/176704722261/heres-my-bit-for-the-reaper76bigbang-story-by) in chapters 1, 4, 9, and 15! Click to see all four.


	16. Finding new equilibrium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are slowly getting better. They’ve been waiting a long time to have this conversation.

Jack walked back towards the common area, where everyone was bound to be waiting, unable to keep either the smile off his face or his fingers still. He kept playing with his wedding ring, the shape of it achingly familiar, a reminder that he _had_ taken that step, and even if things weren’t completely okay between them yet, they _would_ be.

At Jesse’s door, he paused. The cowboy deserved to know, right?

“You better have a good reason for knocking!” called a disgruntled female voice when he knocked on the door.

He assumed that was Sombra. “Just came from talking to Jesse’s dad,” he called back.

The door opened. Jesse was still lounging in the bed, draped in blankets, but Sombra was curled intimately up against his side. Daughter-in-law, right. Jack stepped in and closed the door.

“How’d it go?” Sombra demanded.

Jesse grinned. “What she said,” he drawled.

Jack took a deep breath. “I kissed him. He kissed back. I apologized. _He_ apologized. I apologized _more_. He told me to make it right.” He lifted his hand, showing off the ring. “He’s got his around his neck, on the chain. We’re going to fix things.”

The smile that spread across Jesse’s face was broad and warm. _“Now_ I can rest easy and relax,” he declared. “My girl’s legs are fixed and my dad’s broken heart is mending. All that’s left is for me to finish patching up these unwanted ventilation openings.”

Sombra nuzzled his neck and smirked at Jack. “Don’t worry, I won’t let him hurt himself. I’ll do all the work until he’s healed.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Jack said hurriedly, averting his eyes from the bed. “I’m off to tell everyone that Reaper’s not going to kill them in their sleep, but not who he actually is.”

“Don’t tell ‘em who I am, either,” Jesse said with a grin. “I wanna surprise everyone when I meander out in search of coffee tomorrow morning.”

That made Jack smile. “Alright, I won’t. Good night, you two.”

“Sleep well, Jack. Tell Dad I said good night,” Jesse added softly.

“I’ll do that,” he promised as he slipped out of the room.

When he got to the common room, every eye turned to him.

“Reaper’s not a threat,” he announced, grinning slightly at the collective sigh that went up.  “The former Talon agents aren’t a threat, either. They’re both recovering nicely and they should come out to introduce themselves tomorrow. Any questions before I head to bed?”

“No, Commander,” Genji said before anyone else could answer. “There is no question so urgent that it should keep you from your well-deserved rest. Sleep well.”

A few agents, Reinhardt especially, gave Genji curious looks, but no one directly questioned him. There was a chorus of wishes for good nights and sleeping well and sweet dreams, and then Jack retreated back towards the barracks to retrieve Gabe’s bag.

* * *

The door hissed open; Jack stepped inside and locked it once it had closed behind him. Gabriel was laying on the couch, still wrapped in the red blanket as though protecting himself from bitter cold, and Jack took a moment to just _look_ at him. There was more grey in his salt-and-pepper beard than Jack remembered, but not much. He’d let his hair grow out into a silvered mane that pooled around his face, and Jack’s fingers twitched at the thought of running them through those frosted locks.

“Gabe?”

Chocolate eyes opened, and softly, Gabriel smiled at him. _God_ he was in love with that handsome bastard.

“Brought your bag,” Jack said, moving close enough to set it within arm’s reach of the couch. Jesse says good night – Sombra’s legs seem to be all repaired, and Jesse should be healed enough to leave his room by morning.”

“Thanks.” The word was quiet, but Gabriel’s soft smile said volumes. “Jack?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“I want to share the bed with you, but I don’t know if I’d be comfortable with that yet.”

Jack’s heart squeezed. It had been _years_ since they’d shared a bed, and the years leading up to everything going to hell hadn’t been the best, either. But it wasn’t the lost intimacy that hurt, it was that his husband was being kept from what he wanted by the memory of what he’d suffered.

“I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, babe,” he said softly. “I understand. The only reason _I’m_ comfortable with anyone even _near_ me when I sleep is I that was traveling with Ana.”

“I didn’t sleep until Sombra started reprogramming my swarm. Then, when I did…I had nightmares…”

That made Jack wince. “If you want to share the bed, sweetheart, you’re more than welcome and I won’t do anything but hold you unless you tell me differently. If it’s too much, there’s the couch – or you can tell _me_ to sleep on the couch. If you have a nightmare, wake me up and I’ll hold you. I love you, Gabe. I want you to be happy.”

“I love you, too, Jack.” The words were hardly louder than a whisper. “Can I get a goodnight kiss from my husband?”

Jack nearly threw himself at the floor in front of the couch. Slowly, he bent down as Gabriel lifted his head. Gently, tenderly, he worshipped his husband’s lips.

“Good night, babe,” he breathed as they parted. “If you need _anything,_ I’m here.”

Gabriel smiled up at him, one hand emerging from the blanket, and he nearly melted when that hand cupped his cheek. “I know, Sunshine. Thank you.”

He kissed his husband’s fingertips before forcing himself to stand and walk into the bedroom. The bed was big and empty, but Jack crawled under the sheet and rolled onto his back with a smile.

Gabriel loved him enough to call him _Sunshine_. He hadn’t expected that everything would be magically fixed with a kiss and an apology, but he also hadn’t expected to hear that name on his husband’s lips again or be able to call him _sweetheart_ without complaint, and he certainly hadn’t expected that things would go well enough for them to be sleeping in the same suite with the possibility of sharing a bed.

Jack fell asleep with his left hand in a fist, quietly reveling in the wedding ring he’d thought had been lost forever and the promise of hope it carried for the future.

* * *

He woke up feeling very content but muddled somehow, confused, like reality wasn’t making sense. For a long minute he just lay there, listening to his husband breathe slowly and deeply in his arms, feeling the tickle of Gabriel’s hair against his face and chest. Then he woke up enough to remember how _long_ it had been since the last time he’d started the day by cuddling the love of his life, and couldn’t stifle the dry sob that burst out of him.

Gabriel tensed in his arms.

“Sorry,” he murmured, forcing himself to relax. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

One hand covered his, squeezed gently, and tugged until Gabriel could return the fingertip kisses from last night.

“Morning,” Gabe murmured while his husband was trying not to melt into an undignified puddle. “What time is it? Can I steal some coffee and breakfast before everyone else wakes up, or is it too late for that?”

“I have no idea. Athena?”

_“The time is five in the morning. No one else is awake.”_

“Thanks,” Gabe said, pulling out of Jack’s arms to roll out of bed and pad over to the closet and dresser that had been reserved for him, back when the Watchpoint was in active use. “ _Damn_ , I’m good.”

“You sure are,” Jack yawned, stretching. When he sat up, Gabriel was pulling on black sweatpants and a hoodie that he must have stashed there years ago.

“I don’t care if I’m hiding in here eating protein bars for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” Gabe announced, “I’m _getting_ my damn _coffee.”_

“Okay if I join you, babe?”

Gabriel flashed him a teasing grin that made his heart jump into his throat. “If you can keep up.”

And that’s how they wound up in the kitchen, sock feet and bare feet silent on the cool floors, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.

“I always wanted a family,” Jack said quietly as they leaned side-by-side against a counter, close enough to touch. “Figured we’d need to adopt, but neither of us had the time to raise a kid. Think we’ll get grandkids out of our cowboy son and his hacker girlfriend?”

Beside him, Gabriel snorted. “She’s an omnic, Jack. _They’ll_ have to adopt.” He paused while Jack guessed he was imagining Jesse raising kids, because that’s what _he_ was imagining. “That may not be the best idea,” he added dryly.

Jack couldn’t help grinning. “Oh, come on, they’ll be fine. They’ll have us-” He broke off, reconsidering, and his grin slipped into a teasing smirk. “They’ll have _me_ as a grandfather.”

When he glanced over, Gabriel was wearing a teasing smirk of his own.

“You’ve been living on the streets for years, Jack. Do you even remember how to cook or get your hands on clean clothes that haven’t been stolen?”

“You weren’t exactly doing much better, babe.”

“Touché.”

“Besides…of the two of us, I’m the one who _didn’t_ have experience with gangs and whores before he turned sixteen.”

That earned him an insincere punch to the upper arm, and as Jack laughed he realized he and Gabe weren’t the only ones laughing.

“Don’t worry,” Sombra assured them, leaning into Jesse’s one-armed hug as they approached the counter, “I’ll make sure my adopted daughter knows where to stab a man.”

Jack grinned slyly at his husband. “Are you _sure_ she’s not your actual daughter, Gabe?”

While Gabriel chuckled, the coffee maker beeped and Jack poured three mugs, handing the third to Jesse.

“Morning, Dad,” the cowboy said with a nod of thanks to Jack. “You’re looking better.”

Gabriel snorted. “Look who’s talking.”

“Yeah, I gotta say, I like having my blood on the _inside_ of my body a lot better than I like being a sieve.” Jesse frowned into his mug. “How’d you know to come find us?”

Sombra flashed Jack an intense but inscrutable look. “I sent a distress call to Max…”

“…and he interrupted my meeting with Vialli to let me know,” Gabriel finished grimly. “How long had you two been plotting together?”

Although the hacker didn’t blush, she ducked her head in embarrassment. “My getting caught was a set-up. He’d been looking for a way to take Talon down – or at least mitigate some of its activities – since before the mess in Venice eight years back, and he thought you could be helpful with the right motivation, so we arranged for me to get caught hacking in and shipped to you.”

“It worked,” Gabriel said dryly.

“And that was _before_ we found out who you were. Afterwards, of course…” Sombra shrugged. “If you were curious, I did some digging. Vialli recognized your voice after we restored your body.”

_“That’s_ how Ogundimu knew who I was,” Gabriel growled. “Well, it doesn’t matter. They’re both dead now. All of them, really, except for Maximilien.”

Jack frowned. “And what happens now that the other heads of Talon have been cut off?”

She shrugged. “Peace and prosperity are good for business. Max has all the reins now, and he’s _really_ invested in _not_ having another human-omnic war happen.”

“Good enough for me.” Gabriel cast a look around the kitchen. “Where are those protein bars? I need to go back to hiding in Jack’s bedroom before anyone else sees me.”

From the doorway, Genji said, “That is not necessary. There is no need to hide,” he added as Gabe pulled the hood up over his head. “I observed that when you first arrived, Commander, you were not wearing a wedding ring. But last night, when you assured us that Reaper was not a threat, you _were_. I merely pointed that fact out to everyone after you left, and our consensus was that no one would ask questions should the two of you be seen together.”

“Up to you, babe,” Jack murmured.

Gabriel put his mug down and shrugged deeper into the hood while shoving both hands into the hoodie’s pockets. “Maybe for lunch. Or dinner. I need a hot shower, and I want to hear how your side of things went.” He paused for a moment, then looked at Genji from under the hood. “You can tell everyone I’m here, but the last few years were _not_ fun for me and I’m still coming to terms with them. Direct questions at Jesse; he’s the only reason I survived with my sanity intact.”

While Genji and Jesse held a quick whispered exchange, Jack checked the contents of the kitchen cabinets until he found a pile of meal bars and an open case of water bottles. He handed two bottles to Gabriel, then tugged the hood down and piled half a dozen wrapped bars in it. That got him a mild glare, which he ignored in favor of tucking another two bottles under his arm before turning back to his husband.

“We’ve got breakfast, babe,” he said softly. “Shall we go somewhere more private?”

“Yeah.” Gabriel stuffed his two bottles into the pockets of his hoodie and picked his coffee mug up again. “Let’s go.”

Leaving the kitchen was delayed briefly as each of them collected hugs, but the rest of the walk back to the commander’s quarters was comfortably silent. They sat on the couch, blanket draped over both of them, and nibbled protein bars between sips of coffee or water. It wasn’t the most romantic meal they’d ever had, Jack thought, but it was easily the most intimate one they’d shared in a long time – even discounting the years since everything went to hell. Gabriel kept looking over at him and _smiling_ , like he was checking to see if Jack was still there and being delighted _every time_ when he discovered that the answer was yes.

Remembering when the last time was that Gabe had smiled like that at seeing him was harder than Jack liked to think about.

When they were both done eating, Jack reached out and took his sweetheart’s hand. “Nightmare?” he asked softly, thumb caressing Gabriel’s knuckles.

Gabriel shifted closer – not close enough to lean against his husband, but closer. “No. Thankfully. I just wanted…” He looked away. “I wanted to be held. I hadn’t let myself think about you for so long because it hurt so much, but…I missed you, Jack. I missed _us_. I missed what we had before politics came between us.”

Jack tugged Gabriel into his arms, blanket and all, and cuddled him to his chest. “I missed us, too,” he rumbled, heart aching as his husband melted against him. “I saw that a bunch of politicians I used to complain about had…accidents. Your work?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you for getting revenge for me,” he teased lightly.

Gabriel turned slightly so he could lay his head on Jack’s shoulder, facial hair tickling as he smiled into Jack’s neck. “I lost out on a _lot_ of action because of them. They had it coming.”

“You killed one of them on my birthday.”

“I didn’t know what else to get you.”

“It was a wonderful gift.” Jack turned his head to lay a soft kiss on his sweetheart’s temple. “So if Maximilien has Talon under control…does this mean we can finally retire to a tropical paradise together?”

“Mmm. I think I’d like that. Did you want to flip everyone the bird and dispute our deaths, or just have Sombra make us fake IDs?”

“I think we should confer with Jesse,” Jack said. “He _is_ your son.”

“And if he and Sombra _do_ adopt, we’ll want to settle nearby so we can spoil our grandkids.”

“I also think that if we’re going to legally come back from the dead, we should invite Ana to that party.”

Gabriel chuckled. “I agree. Where is she, anyway? Expected her to be in the kitchen making tea.”

“Went with Angela. They stole Amélie from Talon.”

“Good.” He paused. “I want to talk to Angela about removing the nanites from my body or deactivating them somehow before we go public. I don’t want _anything_ tying me to Reaper. I want to be normal again.” Then, softly, “I want to grow old with you, Jack.”

There was nothing Jack could say to that; every word in his brain had shriveled up and died. He just hugged Gabriel tighter, struggling to blink back tears and not finding it in himself to care that it wasn’t working.


	17. Emergence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naturally, everyone wants to hear about Reaper. Jack and Gabe, in the meantime, make plans for their future together.

A few hours after he and Sombra had retreated from the kitchen, Athena informed Jesse that everyone else had eaten breakfast and gathered in the common room if they wanted to introduce themselves.

They did.

“Yes,” Jesse announced as he sauntered into the common room, “I _am_ alive. No hugs, please,” he added when Reinhardt looked ready to leap up from the couch and charge him. “I just got the holes patched up, and I’d rather not start leaking again.”

Two agents he didn’t quite remember jumped up from a love seat with gestures that he and Sombra should occupy it while they dragged a pair of chairs over from the table.

“It is good to see you,” Reinhardt declared stoutly. To either side of him, Genji and Brigitte nodded agreement. “After what happened in Zurich…I will not deny I feared the worst. And our friend here-” he pulled Genji into a one-armed hug “-has been disappointingly short on details! Sit! Tell us about your lovely friend.”

Jesse sat, with Sombra sprawling comfortably against him. “Ah, I know what you really want to hear. Y’all wanna know about Reaper.”

No one bothered to deny it. A few people gave apologetic shrugs. Winston looked embarrassed.

“You’ve all seen him do the smoke trick?” he drawled, settling in to enjoy telling the story. “Right, well, turns out a nanite swarm will let you survive being burnt to a crisp, and compared to that, a sniper’s bullet is nothing. So me’n Dad, we’re mindin’ our own business catchin’ a little shut-eye in a motel room when Blackwatch’s Bad Guy Numero Uno comes bustin’ in lookin’ to finish us off. Only…he wasn’t expectin’ my right hook. Now it’s me and Dad with the Reaper unconscious on the floor, so obviously it’s time to interrogate him. Who sent you, and all that.”

Knowing what had _really_ happened, Sombra couldn’t help but be impressed with the way he was not only telling an essentially true but _completely_ misleading version of the story, but also had the entire room hanging on his every word.

“Once we had everything he knew, he got a little long-delayed justice and Dad claimed his stuff. No one expects Reaper to be Commander Reyes, ‘specially if the Commander’s dead. So we made up a story about how I’d defected and wanted to sign up with Talon. That whole _join the winning side_ deal. Then it was just working our way in deeper and waiting for an opportunity…with a side of meeting the most gorgeous woman in the world,” he added, laying a kiss on Sombra’s temple. “Didn’t hurt much of anything, her being the best hacker in the world on top of that. But either someone got wind of us planning exactly what you guys did, or they figured on making a power play, ‘cuz me’n Sombra, we got sent into a trap and if Dad hadn’t come for us…”

Several nods and winces followed the words trailing off. Winston raised his hand.

“Did, uh, anyone else know who Reaper was?” he asked the room in general, but shaken heads and curious glances all around were the only answer he got.

“Jack knew,” Jesse said. “And Ana. They kept it quiet, though. I mean…Jack’s thing wasn’t exactly _subtle,_ and if Reaper’d been flirting with Soldier Seventy-Six, well…”

“That explains why Jack began wearing his wedding ring again,” Genji announced as though the thought had only just occurred to him. “With Talon defeated, they no longer need to hide their relationship.”

Reinhardt beamed. “I am just glad that I did not _really_ lose the friends I mourned.”

“Enough about me and my family,” Jesse said firmly. “I wanna hear what _you_ all were doing. Brigitte, does your dad know where you are?”

“Yes and no,” she laughed. “Following _this_ big lug around and keeping him in one piece, yes. Where _exactly_ that takes me…not always.”

The conversation devolved into banter and tale-telling between friends, with the other Overwatch agents fading from their awareness.

* * *

By the time any of them realized they were hungry, Sombra had already ordered food from a handful of different establishments and hijacked a delivery drone to collect their feast and bring it to the Watchpoint.

“You’re too good to me,” Jesse said when she’d finished listing the foods that would be there within minutes.

Smugly, she kissed him. “You gonna need your strength tonight,” she teased, eliciting good-natured whoops from Reinhardt and Brigitte and a chuckle from Genji.

_“Shall I inform the Strike-Commander that lunch will arrive shortly?”_ Athena asked.

“Yeah, and let Dad know he can show his face, too.” Jesse looked around. “Where’d everyone else go?”

_“The other agents have departed in the Talon ship, now that the mission is over and they have recuperated from it,”_ the AI informed him.

“Oh. Well then, _definitely_ tell Dad to get out here.”

_“They are on their way.”_

Of course, the food arrived first and in the flurry of unpacking and claiming and serving, they almost forgot that they were expecting two more.

“My friends!” Reinhardt boomed as he turned, plate of wurst and spätzle in hand, to see the two entering cautiously. “Do not worry,” he added with a glance at his plate. “I will not hug you until after lunch.”

Jesse waved them over. “Sombra ordered a couple of subs. Dad, meatball…”

“Good girl. Your bedtime is never,” Gabriel muttered as he reached greedily for the wrapped sandwich Jesse was holding out. “Did you order Jack’s tasteless favorite?”

“…and Jack,” Jesse continued as if his dad hadn’t said anything, “I think this turkey on white is for you.”

“So you _did_.”

Jack stuck his tongue out as he accepted the sub. “There’s nothing wrong with turkey, Gabe.”

“Except that it’s _bland_.”

“I _like_ it.”

“You have no appreciation for _flavor._ ”

“It has flavor!”

“Mayo’s not a flavor, Sunshine.” The grin on Gabriel’s lips gave lie to the razzing he was giving his husband.

“I have an appreciation for _you,”_ Jack countered, leaning in to claim his sweetheart’s lips, free hand burying itself greedily in his hair.

They didn’t part for the cheering and whistling; not until Jesse mock-called, “Get a room!” did they come up for air.

“There’s chips and soda, too,” the cowboy continued as if the entire exchange hadn’t happened.

“If you put those plain chips on your sub, I’m divorcing you,” Gabriel threatened insincerely as his husband reached for one of the little bags.

“I would never!” Jack recoiled in false affront, then reached past the plain chips to pick up a different bag. “They’re salt and vinegar.”

Gabriel gave him a long, measuring look. “I’ll allow it,” he said at last.

Winston chuckled. “I must say, it’s _good_ to see you two getting along again.”

“I agree,” Reinhardt interjected. “I did not say anything in front of the other agents, but I suspect there is more to Jack’s reappearing wedding ring than simply _not needing to hide the relationship_.”

Jack and Gabriel settled on the love seat, eyes averted and heads lowered.

“I won’t deny things were strained for a few years,” Jack said quietly, unwrapping his sandwich. “And I acted inexcusably the day everything went down. We’re working things through.”

Defiantly, Gabriel raised his head and tugged the chain out from under his hoodie. “Because I know at least one of you noticed,” he said before tucking his ring away again. “We’re working things through, and that’s all anyone else needs to know.” Glaring impartially at the rest of the room, he took an enormous bite of his sub and chewed angrily.

For a minute, there was silence broken only by the sounds of eating and Jack placing chips on his turkey sub.

Gabriel swallowed. “One more thing. Anyone says _a single fucking word_ to Jack about what he did or said the say everything went down, I’ll kick your fucking ass _in a heartbeat_. The only one he answers to for that is _me_.”

The silence this time was broken by the muted crunch of chips as Jack bit into his sub.

“Uh…” Winston cleared his throat. “Now that Talon is…no longer a concern…what does that mean for the rest of us?”

Sombra sat up. “I’m working with Maximilien to continue the progress made by Papi assassinating the worst of the corrupt politicians that strangled Overwatch. Talon’s propaganda machine is going to turn public sentiment against the Petras Act. We hope to get it repealed within a year.”

“So we have a year to figure out how to dispute our legal deaths,” Jack said with a glance at Gabriel.

“And I’ve got a year for Angela to get these damned nanites out of me,” he muttered with another angry bite of his meatball sub.

“I’ll get you two hooked up with some fake ID in the meantime,” Sombra said. “Several countries are already penning Omnic rights legislation, including Mexico. But until then, one of you will have to buy a house for us to live in. You don’t object to settling down in Dorado, do you, Jesse?”

He swallowed his bite of baked ziti. “Not at all, honeysuckle.”

“Good. Because I like your dad’s idea of adopting a couple of kids, and it _would_ be easier to do that if Omnics were allowed to own property and adopt.”

Winston looked up in surprise. “Wait – Sombra, you’re an Omnic?”

Brigitte’s eyes sparkled. “Jesse has an Omnic girlfriend?”

“Omnic girlfriends were an option?” Genji joked. “No one ever mentioned that to me!”

“Her mind’s organic,” Jesse protested. “She just…transferred herself into an omnic body.”

“I had no idea,” Winston flustered.

Sombra rolled her eyes. “You worked on my legs, how is this a surprise?”

“In his defense,” Genji said mildly, “I exist.”

For a moment, the room was silent.

“Point,” Sombra acknowledged. “But yes, my body is omnic and my mind is not.”

“But…wait…” Winston looked like he knew he was going to regret asking, but he couldn’t stop himself. “If she’s omnic, how do you…” Aborted hand gestures made the meaning clear.

Sombra pulled up a screen with her schematics, zoomed in, and digitally pulled the very fancy stroker out of its conveniently-located socket.

All eyes turned to Jesse, who smirked.

“Don’t be hating because you’re jealous my girl’s got three speeds of built-in vibration and five patterns of stroking action,” he said smugly.

Jack covered his eyes with a strangled sound. “We did _not_ need to know that, Jesse,” he protested.

“Yeah,” Gabriel added, just a hair too dryly for genuine indignation. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

The cowboy’s smirk widened. “Yee-haw.”

Gabriel grinned at Sombra and shook his head while everyone else groaned.

* * *

Although Reinhardt, Brigitte, and Genji had left after lunch, the two couples decided to stay the night and head out to see Ana and Angela in the morning. Jack and Gabriel spent the afternoon soaking in the quiet of the outdoors, admiring the ocean or walking hand-in-hand with no destination in particular or just sitting under a tree, being together. Gabriel didn’t say anything, and Jack didn’t want to press his luck by starting a conversation that might end badly, so they just… _were_.

As they stood side by side, watching the sun begin to set, Gabriel said softly, “We never got enough time to just spend together.”

Jack swallowed. “We have it now. We have the rest of our lives, and _nothing_ is more important to me than you.”

For a long minute, Gabriel rested his head on Jack’s shoulder, their fingers tangling together. “It didn’t make me feel better,” he said finally.

“What didn’t, sweetheart?”

“Beating the crap out of you in that building. You asked if I felt better. I didn’t.”

“Didn’t beat me enough?” Jack asked, his heart stuck in his throat. “You can-”

“I don’t _want_ to hurt you!” Gabriel’s hand tightened almost painfully around Jack’s. “Part of me did. The part that lashes out when I’m in pain. That part wanted to see you as miserable as you’d made me. But Jack…when I saw you in that cell, I remembered talking you into going to Vegas. I’d just learned you were alive, and my first thought wasn’t what you said or did in Zurich. It was how you tried so hard to not smile when you agreed to a secret theme wedding.”

Jack stroked the hand clutching his. “Was breaking me out Jesse’s idea?”

“No. Mine. I almost killed you in the warehouse. It would have been easy. But I couldn’t do it.”

“Gabe…” Jack turned to press a gentle kiss on his sweetheart’s forehead. “I forgive you for every second of pain or discomfort. I deserved it _all_ for what I put you through. When we visited Angela, and she showed us where you…” He swallowed. “Well, let’s just say that sausage McMuffins are ruined for me now, and I’m glad the toilet still worked.”

Gabriel went still. “You threw up?”

“Sweetheart, I hurt you so badly that you _set yourself on fire_. Knowing that I did that to you, _my husband_ , makes my stomach churn every time I think about it. I’d let you rip the beating heart out of my chest with Reaper’s gauntlets if that would stop the pain I caused you.”

“It wouldn’t.”

Jack gathered him into his arms, held him as warmly and tightly as he could. “I know. But hopefully it shows how far I’d go to fix things between us. Just say the word, babe. Whatever you need. Whatever you want. You tell me to jump, I’ll be two feet in the air before I stop to ask how high.”

That made Gabriel grin into Jack’s neck. “Drop and give me twenty, soldier,” he growled softly.

Immediately, Jack released him and threw himself at the ground, pumping out twenty push-ups in rapid succession before leaping to his feet again with a half-cocky, half-hopeful smile.

Gabriel laughed.

* * *

Jack stretched on the bed as Gabriel vanished into the bathroom with his bag. In the past, Gabe would have made it a striptease and things would have escalated and they would have gone to sleep a little sweaty but satisfied. Now his husband wasn’t comfortable undressing in the same room. Jack couldn’t blame him, though – after his years on the run, he wasn’t comfortable sleeping in anything lighter than sweatpants and a tee.

They were going to try sleeping in the same bed from the start instead of Gabe sneaking in with Jack at some unholy hour of the night. Both of them were pushing the limits of their comfort zones, fighting to get back to where they used to be. For Jack, it was just re-learning that he didn’t have to be vigilant every second of the day and night. But for Gabe…

The bathroom door opened, and Jack shut his eyes. He’d broken his husband’s heart, and shattered faith needed more than just time to rebuild. Although he seemed to be back to his old self when other people were around, there were still moments when Gabriel looked like a cornered animal, and Jack wasn’t the only one who’d seen it. Reinhardt had quietly told him to take care of Gabriel when they’d hugged goodbye, and Genji had said something about broken bowls repaired with care being more beautiful than before, but that first they had to _be_ repaired. So Jack pretended not to notice as his husband padded over to the bed and moved across the mattress until he was close enough to touch.

“Remember when I’d turn getting undressed into a striptease?” Gabriel asked softly.

Jack grinned, eyes still shut. “And I’d pretend to try to pay you for a lap dance?”

“And then we’d wrestle to see who topped. I miss that.”

The grin faded slightly. “I miss that too, babe.”

“I’m not ready to do that again yet. I’m…not ready for going past first base at all. But I still want you, and…”

“I still want you, too,” Jack whispered.

“Will you let me…”

Jack turned towards Gabriel’s voice, eyes still closed so that his husband could see his expression but not feel pressured. “Whatever it is, yes.”

Lips fluttered against his. “Okay.”

Hands dipping under the band of his sweatpants weren’t entirely unexpected. It didn’t take long for Gabriel to stroke him to full attention, but the cool wetness of lube was…intriguing. Then he started working Jack’s erection into some kind of textured-

“Using it made me think of you,” Gabriel murmured.

Then the vibrations started, and the soft material enclosing him started _moving_ , and Jack’s eyes rolled back while some unintelligible string of sounds escaped his lips.

When he was able to think again, through the golden syrupy afterglow that flooded him, Gabriel had cleaned him up and tucked him away and was now using his shoulder for a pillow with the sheet pulled up to cover them both.

“That was _amazing_ ,” Jack groaned.

Gabriel hummed softly. _“You’re_ amazing,” he countered sleepily.

Carefully, Jack got his free hand up to stroke the short fluff of his husband’s hair. “Nah. _You’re_ the amazing one. Love you, sweetheart.”

“Love you too, Sunshine. G’night.”

“Good night,” Jack murmured.

It would take time to completely fix things between them, Jack thought as Gabriel’s breathing slowed, and neither of them would be the same, but Genji was right. With enough care, what had been broken would become even more beautiful for having been repaired.


	18. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans have come to fruition, and all that’s left is to share their happiness with all their friends.

“That was the most _unpleasant_ experience I’ve ever had in a bathroom,” Gabriel said, looking at the tray of gleaming marble-sized spheres that used to be his nanite swarm. “Yes, worse than that time I did the vodka and hot wings dare – which I _won,_ thank you very much – and I’m also counting the time I got cornered and stabbed with a dirty knife.”

Jack chuckled while Angela looked like she was trying to pretend she hadn’t heard any of that.

“I don’t anticipate any negative reactions from being separated from the swarm,” she said with a cautionary note, “but I’d like you to stay for a day or two just in case.”

“Of course.” Gabriel grinned at his husband. “I can show Jack the shitty motel I woke up in.”

“We’re not staying there, Gabe.”

“Trust me, once was enough. But the pizza place around the corner is pretty good.” He left a quick kiss on Jack’s cheek and turned back to Angela. “So, uh…what are you going to do with…them?”

Angela calmly poured the spheres into a container of some clear liquid. “I have been working with Sombra to understand how their programming changed in response to drastic environmental stimulus-”

“Sorry about your bathroom,” Gabriel interjected, wincing.

Jack looked at him sharply. “Wait. Are you saying that was worse than _burning to death?”_

“Considering I remember about two minutes of being loopy as balls and then some heat and then I woke up in a bathtub wearing the edgiest outfit known to man? Yes.”

“-and the process that let you return to your own body,” Angela continued forcefully. “This could mean an end to the need for prosthetics, depending on what the swarm was unable to replicate for itself.”

“You mean the things I had to _eat people_ for.”

Angela winced. “Yes. Also, Sombra has expressed interest in following your lead, so we are…working with the Omnium to develop a process for that.”

“Yee-haw,” Jack muttered.

“We are also looking into using nanites as an alternative for sex reassignment surgery. Your experiences, Gabriel, may one day allow millions of people to live comfortably in their own bodies.”

He and Jack exchanged a wordless look. “That would make everything worth it,” he said quietly.

Jack cleared his throat. “So. ‘Fuck you Petras’ party for the big repeal in three months?”

Angela wrinkled her nose at him, but she was smiling. “And celebrating the return – both from the shadows and from the dead – of some very dear friends. You have been very secretive in Dorado with Jesse and Sombra, and we are all very eager to hear what you have been up to.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for the party.” Jack said blandly, sliding one arm around his sweetheart.

“Yeah.” Gabriel leaned into his husband’s embrace. “Wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

* * *

The manager of the hotel was _pretty sure_ they were being pranked. But whoever was behind it had deep pockets to reserve a block of their best rooms (including a couple of suites) _and_ one of their event rooms, plus a generous deposit in case of damages and a “outside catering fee” that he could only assume was a bribe, since such a fee did not exist. It _had_ to be a prank, staging the scene for a week-long Overwatch reunion starting the night before the public spectacle that would be the repeal of the Petras Act. But the caterers confirmed that they had been hired, and when he reached out to Dr. Ziegler on some spurious excuse, she confirmed that she would be there.

Still…the names the rooms were put under…

Yes, Reinhardt Wilhelm and Torbjörn Lindholm were still around, and it was possible the later would bring some of his adult children, but _Winston?_ He was the gorilla scientist from the moon who’d gone missing, wasn’t he? And Amélie Lacroix – that was the famous dancer who’d been kidnapped and never found, the one who’s married that murdered Overwatch official. “Genji” could only be the Shimada cyborg from the Venice mess – there’s no way he would just _show up_ at one of the finest hotels in Zurich, would he?

And then, of course, there were the three dead people.

No, it had to be a prank – and not a kind one, not with inviting Captain Amari’s daughter. But the payment had cleared, so it was out of his hands. He would simply make sure he was there to watch who checked in and see what sort of imposters tried to pass themselves off as Morrison, Reyes, and Amari.

* * *

“… _sure_ this is our hotel?” an American man was saying as he stepped into the lobby.

The woman with exotic hair and even more exotic cranial augmentations huffed. “Yes, Jesse, this is the hotel. I _am_ the one who made the reservations.”

They walked up to the desk, with two children running up to them dragging little suitcases and two older men following with the rest of the luggage. That wasn’t- they _looked_ like- but they couldn’t-

“Jesse McCree,” the American said, and he sure _looked_ like Jesse McCree. “I guess we got a reservation for a suite with three bedrooms?”

The omnic manning the desk checked, tilted her head, and held out four key cards. “You do indeed! Would you like assistance with your luggage?”

“Nah, that’s what my dad is for,” McCree grinned. “Thanks, though.”

He took the keys and the hand of the older child and strolled towards the elevator with the woman, the younger child, and the two men who _could not be_ Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes following.

Fareeha Amari walked in a few minutes later, looking stern enough to make the manager consider quailing if she directed her ire in his direction. Dr. Ziegler arrived almost on her heels, and the two greeted each other warmly. They collected their keys and walked to the elevators together.

“Isn’t this exciting?” chirped Cynd33 once the elevators had closed.

The manager swallowed. “Yes. Exciting.”

Wilhelm and the Lindholms were next – two singles and a suite, although who the second single was for, the manager couldn’t guess. Perhaps the dwarfed mechanic and his wife, and the suite was for the gaggle of adult children and grandchildren. Cynd33 handed over the keycards and away they went, chattering.

Half an hour later, someone who looked slightly too human-shaped to be an omnic fairly _appeared_ at the front desk and claimed he was Genji. The Japanese accent was a nice touch.

Ten minutes after that, Lena Oxton checked in with a lovely young lady _and that was the gorilla_ , this was really happening. The manager was starting to give serious thought to raiding the hotel bar before retiring for the night.

When the older woman with an eye patch walked in talking quietly with Amélie Lacroix and gave her name as Ana Amari, he decided that drinking was the only sane response. Amari smiled knowingly at him with kindness and pity in her eye, as if she understood how _insane_ this all was.

Cynd33 was beside herself with excitement.

* * *

“Ready?” Jesse asked as they stood outside the event room. Everyone else had gathered inside.

Jason took his hand. “Yes, daddy.”

“Ready,” Jade said in her little voice, clinging to Sombra’s hand.

He nodded to Gabriel and Jack, who flung the doors open and strode in.

“Everyone,” Gabriel called, attracting every eye in the room and silencing all other conversation, “I am _beyond_ pleased to introduce my adopted son’s adopted children: Jason and Jade!”

The silence erupted into cheerful cacophony, congratulations and greetings overlapping. Torbjörn could be heard growling, “About time you fuckers had grandkids. I thought I’d _never_ see the day.” Then one voice cut through all the rest with the indignation only a mother could produce.

“Gabriel Reyes!” Ana chided. “How could you do this? How could you let Jesse adopt those poor kids?” she demanded, standing on a chair with her hands on her hips while Fareeha covered her face. “…Without telling me so I could spoil them?” Ana finished with a broad grin, hopping down to dart forward and scoop Jade into a hug.

Reinhardt leaped to his feet with an equally-outraged bellow. “There’s grandkids and I didn’t get to spoil them?”

By the time he’d edged around the chairs to charge Jason, the curly-haired child was already charging him and he caught the boy in a tight hug, spinning him around before setting him down again.

It was a few minutes before the grandchild hubbub died down, with many hugs and congratulations exchanged. Jason and Jade and the Lindholm grandkids formed a cluster off in one corner, leaving the adults to collectively demand details.

“Mexico doesn’t let omnics own property yet,” Jesse began with an arm around Sombra, “much less adopt. And with Jack and Dad still officially dead, that left me to be the name on papers. But we didn’t really want to wait, and money has a way of overcoming certain obstacles, so while Jack was out hunting for a nice house for me to buy, me’n Dad and Sombra went to find the poorest, most run-down orphanage in Dorado and see if we couldn’t bribe our way to parenthood.”

Emily murmured something to Lena, who raised her hand.

“Question,” she chirped. “Or…I guess two questions…”

Sombra grinned. “Yes, my body is omnic, but I used to be human.”

“Okay, one question. Where did you get the money?”

“All the corrupt politicians I killed,” Gabriel said smugly. “She drained their estates before anyone even knew they were dead. Redistributed most of the wealth, but pocketed some as a sort of finder’s fee.”

Lena’s expression clouded over. “So you _were_ Reaper.”

“Only after everything went to hell.”

“And Sombra, you’re…Jesse’s girlfriend?”

“Yes, because we can’t really get married if I don’t legally exist.”

Lena shook her head with a chagrined smile. “I don’t know which is the bigger surprise, that Jesse’s got a girlfriend or that he adopted kids before us! Sorry for the interruption. Keep going.”

Jesse grinned. “Well, we walk in – Sombra called ahead and asked about, uh, _monetarily expedited adoption_ so they got all the kids cleaned up and had ‘em there to meet their prospective parents, right? We walk in and this cute little local girl, couldn’t be older than six, hair up in two pigtails, comes running up and hugs my legs. Looks up at me with this biiiiiig smile and these sparkling dark eyes. Says her name is Sofia and runs off. And the matron’s introducing all these kids and notices one of ‘em was missing, so she shouts for…honeysuckle, what was the name?”

“Felicia,” Sombra says dryly. “Felicia Heather, who turned out to have been outside playing in the dirt, and while the matron was hunting down the missing kid, I broke it to Jesse that Sofia had picked his pocket and I wanted to adopt her.”

“Right,” Jesse chuckled, not even remotely embarrassed. “So the matron shoos this dirty little eight-year-old into the room, and the kid whips out a rubber-band gun and nails me _right in the forehead_. From half the room away! So obviously, these were the kids we wanted.”

Gabriel started laughing. “You can’t leave out the best part,” he wheezed. “Picture it: Jesse’s standing there like he’s been poleaxed, the matron’s ready to give the kid a spanking they’ll never forget, terrified that the man with lots of money is going to walk out, and Jesse shouts YOU GET THAT ONE, I'LL GET THIS ONE! and _lunges_ for the kid with the rubber-band gun while Sombra grabs the pickpocket and holds her under one arm, wrists in her other hand.”

Jack gave him a teasing look. “Didn’t you tell me that you stood in the background rubbing your hands together and muttering _yeeeeesssss, those are excellent grandchildren, I will teach them all the bad habits, this will be great?”_

A bark of laughter burst out of Ana, who pretended unconvincingly that it was a cough.

“So the matron is _beside_ herself,” Jesse continues, grinning broadly. “We’ve just picked out the two most troublesome kids. Sofia was dumped on them after she was caught pickpocketing a rich tourist; if she had parents, they bailed. And Felicia had been abandoned there shortly after birth, probably by a local whore who got knocked up by some white tourist. But somewhere around four or five, Felicia started demanding to be called Jason and developed an allergy to all things girly. Acted out. Got dirty. Threw fits at being called Felicia. Chased away prospective parents. So the matron’s sure we’re gonna demand the money back. Doesn’t believe us that nah, _these_ are the kids we want, but she lets me sign the papers and Dad carries our new struggling troublemaker out to the car.”

Sombra leaned in to kiss him. “And then he opens the passenger door and goes _So, your name’s Jason, right? How’d you like to ride up here with me, Jason?_ and just like that Jason calms down. I’d buckled Sofia into the middle of the back seat, and she pipes up with _If Jason gets to pick his name, can I pick my name, too?”_

Jesse’s proud smile almost didn’t fit on his face. “And that’s when I learned I had a son.”

The hugs, tears, and exclamations of ‘that’s wonderful!’ went on for a couple of minutes.

“We’re still arguing over what school to send them to,” Jack said dryly when everyone had quieted back down. “Gabe wants to homeschool them-”

“None of the schools in Dorado allow brass knuckles or pocket knives! I’m not sending my grandkids to a school that doesn’t let them defend themselves in a fight!”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Gabe. Sweetheart. Kids aren’t _supposed_ to fight in school.”

Gabriel crossed his arms stubbornly. “But then where are they going to learn it?”

“From _us,_ babe.”

“We’re looking into martial arts lessons,” Sombra deadpanned.

Fareeha smiled at her mother. “It worked well for me.”

“Did you find a house?” Amélie asked Jack in a soft voice.

For a moment, he looked startled, as if he’d forgotten she was there – or that she was no longer blue-skinned. Then he shook his head and smiled. “I did. Absolutely gorgeous mansion in the middle of a quiet residential area. Walled property, gardens, pool, the works. But it wasn’t for sale.”

“A shame,” Genji murmured.

Jack grimaced. “The next week, the guy who owned the property put it up for sale, cheap, cash preferred. Apparently someone aired his dirty laundry and he had to flee the country. So it’s ours now, complete with appliances, furniture, artwork, and everything else he couldn’t stuff into a pair of suitcases and haul away.”

Angela pinned the hacker with a sharp look. “Sombra, did you have something to do with that?”

“Of course not!” False affront melted into a smug grin. “I had _everything_ to do with it. What? It’s not like I _lied_. He did everything he was accused of.”

Winston scowled. “Jesse, you’re… _okay_ …with your fiancé doing things like this?”

The cowboy shrugged. “'I joined Talon to keep an eye on my dad,” he pointed out. “I think we can all agree my morals are questionable at best.”

“Considering the fact that your joining Talon led to my mother returning from the dead,” Fareeha said, “I can find no fault in your actions.”

“England’s close to establishing some really sturdy Omnic rights,” Lena pointed out. “That’s Sombra’s work, Winston, didn’t you say?”

Jack nodded. “And the Petras Act being repealed, too.”

“That’s not the most important thing my cowboy son and hacker daughter-in-law managed to do through their questionably legal actions,” Gabriel declared, challenging everyone else to refute him.

Torbjörn grunted. “Okay, I’ll bite.”

Gabriel held his left hand out proudly, flame-stained titanium glinting from his ring finger. “Once we’re legally alive again, we’re going to Vegas to renew our vows.”

Ana’s eye fairly sparked. “Gabriel…”

“And you’re _all invited_ ,” he huffed. “Come on, Ana, you think I’m dumb enough to get myself killed when I have _the rest of my life_ ahead of me to spend with my husband and my family?”

Lena frowned. “Your ring…aren’t you going to clean it?”

“No,” he said softly as Jack took his hand and kissed it. “It’s a reminder that what we have is all the more precious for having almost lost it.”

“We _would_ have lost everything if not for Jesse and Sombra.” Jack’s voice was just as soft, and he pulled his sweetheart into a gentle embrace. “I wasted _years_ trying to solve all the world’s problems and taking Gabe for granted. Well, the world’s on its own. That’s not my fight anymore.”

Ana gave him a slight smile. “Whatever happened to _I’m a soldier; our war’s never over,_ Jack?”

“I retired,” Jack said with a shrug. “The only battle I want to fight is the battle to spoil this handsome bastard more than he spoils me.”

“And the battle to see who tops when we go to bed,” Gabriel murmured, smirking into his husband’s shoulder.

Jesse covered his eyes with a strangled sound. “Aw, Dad, we didn’t need to know that!”

“Yeah,” Sombra added, just a hair too dryly for genuine indignation. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Gabriel’s smirk widened. “Yee-haw.”

Jack grinned at Sombra and shook his head while everyone else groaned.


End file.
